


Cuddle Puddle

by nothingwrongwiththerain



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 5+1 Things, Ace Keith, Anxiety, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Blood and Injury, Bonding, Dancing, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gay Keith (Voltron), Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Group Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Keith is having a hard time, Kidnapping, M/M, Panic Attacks, Pidge is a good friend, Platonic Cuddling, Space Dad Shiro (Voltron), This got a little dark, Torture, Violence, asexual Keith, background shallura - Freeform, ending is going to be precious tho, fancy dress/suits, i'll say it again, more than platonic cuddling, real sarcastic tho, think anime beach ep, underage drinking i guess, updates!:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-09-21 07:38:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 46,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9538205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingwrongwiththerain/pseuds/nothingwrongwiththerain
Summary: Unexpectedly, Shiro’s hand landed on the top of his head. Apparently with Lance and Hunk taking up all the shoulder real estate, Shiro would settle for ruffling Keith’s hair.Keith was fairly certain his soul was about to detach and abandon his shaking body on the couch. He was surrounded, in the complete and total sense of the word, by other people. Not once before, not in his whole life, had he dealt with a situation like this one.Or, five times Keith found himself too close for comfort and one time he couldn't get close enough.//**heads up**//this is FORMERLY a 5+1 promptThe story gained sentience and a horrifying word count starting in chapter 3. The concept (Keith struggling with physical contact and learning to accept people care about him, as well as some helpful insight into asexuality) that’s still therejust buried under an enormous amount of angst, blood and emotional trauma when a mission goes wrong (and continues going wrong) in ways nobody expected.





	1. Couch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Klance has been killing me slowly and -shockingly- there is a lack of asexual representation in my fandoms. Welcome to my solution.

Harmless is not a word Keith Kogane associated with much. Growing up, everyone was pushing an agenda, another motive, another nail into the box defining who he was and what he could do. 

But this started harmless enough. Subtle, even. Keith didn’t notice his mistake until far too late.

Keith was on the couch, settled into a rare moment of doing absolute nothing. Shiro found him sparring in the training simulator after dinner and proceeded to kick him out. Keith ducked out of a dad lecture about ‘not working himself into a coma’ despite the week long string without missions. The galaxy, for whatever reasons, wasn’t sending distress signals or flinging Galra warships at them. A long awaited break from the chaos. 

It was driving Keith mad. 

The others seemed content to buzz around the ship; Pidge with their machines, Hunk and Coran’s latest disaster in the kitchen, Shiro “meditating” (though Keith had his suspicions about where the princess disappeared to) and Lance doing what Lance did. Usually a variation on bothering one of the aforementioned. They trained as a team regularly, but not the entire day. Outside of practice Keith could only clean his bayard so many times.

Keith deemed the couch a neutral enough place to crash after his shower. Judging by the Castle's light levels, it wasn’t late enough to warrant laying around his room with nothing to do but wait for another day to end. Might as well do that in the common space.

He was sitting, arms hooked over the back of the couch, when Pidge arrived with an armload of machinery. 

“Hey,” they said, manhandling a box clearly half as heavy as them, or more. Keith nodded back, remembering the first time he offered to carry something hefty for Pidge. The bruises had taken weeks to fade. When they smacked their cargo onto the floor, the stubby carpet did little to lessen the impact and the metallic shapes crunched unpleasantly. Keith winced but Pidge didn’t seem concerned. 

“Help me.”

“Uh.” A small multicolored city of gears and wires was rising around his boots as Pidge sorted components. 

“Unless you have some pressing engagement.” 

Keith raised an eyebrow. Regardless of the crash course they had in basic Lion repair, the tumble of parts at his feet was nothing more than a violent mechanical avalanche. He would have more luck parsing a shattered vase back together. At least then he would have a clue where to start. “Hunk would probably be better.”

Pidge laughed, but not unkindly. “Undoubtedly. If I were working on designs. Right now I need somebody to hold plates in place while I connect the circuit wires to the auxiliary fusion matrix.”

Keith blinked, Pidge’s technical vocabulary sweeping over his head. It was comforting to know, objectively, Pidge was never going to stop trying to impart knowledge on the rest of them, no matter the learning curve. Keith let a smile slip. 

“Okay. What do you need me to do?” 

They worked together (if work could be counted as Keith lifting wires and passing buzzing tools) without issue. Honestly, Keith enjoyed spending time with Pidge. They possessed an uncanny knowledge of the inner workings of mechanics and everyone on board. Both of which they could discuss at length. Keith nodded where expected and followed along as best he could, laughing at Pidge’s scarily accurate Coran impression. 

“...after that, Hunk told Coran. What was it, two week ago? Whenever we got all those new ingredients, Hunk set the table and just didn’t bring the food out. And thus, when Lance started complaining, he sent Coran out and we got ‘Hi hungry, I’m Coran’. I thought Lance was going into cardiac arrest.” 

Keith snorted. Typical. 

“Speaking of Lance,” Pidge started, far too sly for Keith’s liking, “make any progress?” 

Given how Pidge knew all and possibly more, Keith shouldn’t have been surprised they would bring Lance up. 

Didn’t stop him from dropping what he was holding, resulting in singed fingers and a scolding.

“Keith! This is highly conductive material. Do you know what happens if you let got while I’m connecting opposing pathways?” 

Keith scowled, didn’t deign their question with a response. 

“That’s what worries me,” Pidge carried on, undeterred. “And I’m sorry to hear that.” 

“I didn’t say anything.” 

“Case and point.” Pidge said. “You can’t expect anything to change if you don’t tell Lance how–”

 _"Pidge"_ Keith hissed, frantically checking the rooms entrance and exit points. 

“Please, Lance and Hunk are on deck 3, cleaning. Allura cornered them earlier. It’ll take another hour at least.”

Keith didn’t stop scanning the perimeter, could feel a flush move up his neck and settle across his cheeks. Had his heartbeat always been this loud?

Pidge snapped their fingers directly in front of Keith’s face. To his credit, it only took about 5 seconds for Keith to scrape together enough willpower to focus. 

“Breathe.” 

Keith breathed. 

“Good, keep doing that.” Pidge waited until Keith nodded to continue. “Look. You know I would never out you to anybody, and you know this is only getting worse. If you don’t want to talk, then we won’t. I won’t force you.”

Keith counted in 5 ticks and held it. He knew, if he asked, Pidge would drop the whole thing without another question. 

“But Keith? It might be good to talk about it. Just a little?” 

Keith let the air out, slow and steady. He also knew they were usually correct about these things. “Yeah, alright.” 

“Have you considered talking to him?”

Keith picked up a gear from floor and glued his eyes to it. Anything was better than a Pidge Knowing Look. “Huh, that never occurred to me–”

Pidge smacked him. “You earn no points for being a smartass here. I get enough of that from Lance.” 

Lance. The name made his stomach drop and twist at the same time. It wasn’t enough for life to drop kick him into deep space with hoards of unfriendly aliens competing for his corpse. No, whatever unseen forces were at work had dumped a big fat crush in the mix. A fucking cherry on top. Keith didn’t even like cherries. Lance did. 

And how he knew that, but couldn’t take apart machines like Pidge or understand food like Hunk was another puzzling conundrum. Keith was a quick study and a good pilot but he’d never taken to anything (or anyone) quite the way he had with Lance.

He could name Lance’s favorite color, favorite season, favorite flavor of Doritos. He knew the names of Lances siblings (all 7) and their respective spouses and children. He’d been subjected to Lance’s theory on how all the Disney movies were connected, heard the 50 different steps of Lance’s skin care regimen. Lance talked and talked and talked and Keith couldn’t help but listen. 

He just never expected to remember. And he couldn’t stop. It drove him crazy until he realized maybe there was a reason. Three days of surveillance (see: stalker behavior) and Keith diagnosed himself with a crush with the same finality doctors assessed plague victims. Incurable. And he was so young. Had so much to live for. Shame. 

“You’re doing it again.” 

Keith dragged himself to the present, to face an expectant and weary Pidge. “Doing what?”

“That thing where you beat yourself up over nothing.”

“It's not nothing.” Keith said, exasperated. 

“So you are beating yourself up?”

Keith sighed. There was no escape. “Maybe?” 

“Keith. There is nothing wrong with liking Lance.” 

If Keith had been pink before, he skipped directly over ‘flushed’ and made a nose dive for ‘traffic light red’. 

“That’s not– not the problem.” He stuttered, eyeing the doors again. 

“Oh?”

“No,” Keith said, irritation prickling across his skin. “It’s not. It’s the other thing! It’s the ‘Lance is clearly not ace’ thing, Pidge. God, he flirts at anything with a pulse. People who flirt _want_ something. I don’t know how else to explain it to you! I–”

Keith cut off, realizing he was nearly shouting. Pinching his eyes shut, Keith bit the inside of his lip, hard enough to sting. It wasn’t Pidge’s fault he was ace, not that there was anything wrong with it. And it wasn’t Pidge’s fault being asexual ended 99% of relationships before they happened. 

Keith let air hiss out between his teeth. “Sorry.” 

“That’s okay.” As usual, Pidge sounded far more reasonable and calm then a 14-year-old had any right to be. “I still think you should talk to him. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen?”

Keith slumped. There was no winning. “If you say so.” 

“I do. Now, hold this and try not to think about Lance so I can complete the network without electrocuting both of us.” 

“What about Lance?”

If a rift in space time had opened beside him, offering eternal disintegration, Keith would have gladly thrown himself into the sweet embrace of death. 

“The usual,” Pidge replied, covering for Keith’s audible choking. “What are you doing up here Hunk? I thought Allura had you and Lance tied up?”

“Nah, we finished a while ago. I’m surprised you guys are still up.” 

Keith looked away from the triangular edges Pidge had crammed in his hand, now held a few inches from their nose. Hunk wandered over, Altean equivalent of a laptop tucked under his arm. 

“Dude, what are you working on?” Hunk sounded genuinely interested, as always. Keith didn't respond immediately, still trying to get his heart rate back down. “Is that a new drone?”

“I don’t actually know,” Keith replied, and took note of Hunk’s pajama bottoms. He still didn’t know where Hunk found pajama pants patterned with cupcakes. “What time is–”

“Keith!” Pidge yelped as Keith’s grip shifted. Sparks jumped from the pencil shaped device they were holding, a few bouncing off their glasses. 

“Shit– sorry–”

Hunk smothered a smile behind his hand as Keith jumped to attention. 

“If I wanted a crooked seam I would have asked Lance for help,” Pidge grumbled, completely engrossed in their work. Keith tried to silently will Pidge onto a different topic via telepathic pleading. Surely all of their bonding practice had to be worth something? 

“Ah. So that’s why he was pouting earlier,” Hunk nodded to himself. 

Keith felt a snag of disappointment Pidge came to him after Lance. He blinked and shook his head. He wasn’t so special. 

“Keith! Honestly!” 

Shaking his head to clear it upset his grip, triggering another shower of sparks. A couple landed on his gloves, glowed red as Pidge squawked in protest. 

“I–”

“Just give it here.” 

The plates where plucked from his hands before Keith could defend himself. Tucking their legs to their chest and propping the device on top of their knees, Pidge scooted around until they had just the right angle before starting again. 

Which was fine. Of course it was fine. Except for the part where ‘just the right angle’ happened to be Pidge using Keith’s legs as a backrest. Keith covered up his sharp inhale with a cough, mind spinning.

Keith didn’t have a personal bubble issue, not really. He spent enough time sparring with the other paladins, physical contact of every variety was inevitable. Outside of the training room, however, Keith didn’t make an effort to reach out. 

And Pidge knew, the sneaky fucker. Keith could hardly call them out in front of Hunk, not without setting off an entire chain of Q&A. The same domino effect Pidge used to question Keith about being ace in the first place. They wanted to know why Keith tensed up every time anyone but Shiro so much as brushed him. 

His story came out in a strange, roundabout way, the night after Sendak raised hell in the Castle, while Lance was still sealed in the healing pod. 

“I have a hard time trusting people,” Keith had admitted, as if that wasn’t the least kept secret in recorded history. Pidge had politely chosen not to comment. “Being ace doesn’t help. I don’t mind people, it’s...”

Keith had floundered. Truthfully, there were days he craved touch. A shoulder pat, a hug, anything, but he didn’t know how to ask without making a bigger mess. 

“It’s nice. It is. But then they expect more, and I... I can’t...”

And that was that. Pidge never asked Keith for any sort of proof to validate how he identified, and they took Keith’s words to heart. More often than not, Pidge’s affection was slightly more violent than others, but the sharp elbows and punches weren’t unlooked for. 

Other times, however. Other times Pidge took it upon themselves to up their game. Tonight was no exception. 

Pidge was a warm weight against his shins, boney shoulder blades digging into Keith’s legs. It wasn’t necessarily bad, but he was hyperaware of his body. He couldn’t formulate any escape routes that didn’t involve jostling Pidge, and he’d messed up their device enough.

It was ridiculous, how much control someone a third of his body weight could have simultaneously over his emotions and mobility. He knew it was ridiculous. 

“Alright there, buddy?” 

Despite his efforts, the look Keith sent Hunk must have contained some iteration of fear.

“Don’t worry about it.” Hunk assured him, waving a hand. “Pidge is always grumpy after midnight.”

“It’s not after midnight,” Pidge muttered, “not that anyone of us would know.”

“As I said,” Hunk confirmed. “Hey, have you seen the flight patterns Allura wants us to try tomorrow?”

“Yeah.” Keith had spent an hour before dinner going over the new patterns the Princess uploaded to their screens. 

“They make sense to you?”

“For the most part.”

“Oh thank God,” Hunks words fell out in a rush, dropping like his shoulders. “I have no idea what’s going on.”

Stepping his socked feet carefully among the gleaming carnage Pidge had fanned out around the couch, Hunk settled beside Keith.

“So I get the first part,” Hunk started, stabbing at the screen, “but after me and Pidge...”

“Pidge and I.” 

“Yeah that,” Hunk acknowledged their correction from the floor, “after we go behind the castle... here lemme show you.”

Thankfully, Hunk was too involved in his tapping to notice Keith had essentially stopped breathing. The larger paladin landed a respectably distance away, but, slowly and surely, he moved over until shoulder was pressing on shoulder. 

If Pidge was rock, rolled down a hill and trapping his legs, then Hunk was a fucking brick wall. Keith was well and truly hemmed in. Dredging up every ounce of self awareness he had left, Keith turned to the screen and desperately followed along as Hunks fingers traced the trajectory of the Yellow Lion. 

Focus. If he could focus on nothing but the screen maybe the screaming in the back of his mind would quiet and the fingers wrapping around his throat would release. 

He realized Hunk was staring. 

“What?”

“You okay man?” 

Keith breathed lightly through his nose. What was he supposed to say? Everything’s fine except for the fact he spent the last year living in a desert without human contact? That he wanted this, wanted to sit and lean all his weight on Hunk, like he watched Lance do a thousand times? That Pidge had conned him into this, and he couldn't decided to be grateful or furious?

That he was broken? 

“Fine,” Keith ground out. “What was the question?” 

Hunk waited a beat but didn’t press it, for which Keith was eternally thankful. “This part here...” 

They talked for a while, flipping between old and new scenarios. Coran had shown Hunk a way to access old data from the Castle cameras, providing a view of the fight from the bridge. Watching conflicts from Coran and Allura’s point of view was weird, but interesting. The material was distracting enough Keith found himself paying less and less attention to his breathing. The metal rod fused to his spine gradually released. A few degrees at a time, Keith let himself sink into the couch, and by proxy, Hunk. The Yellow paladin was incomprehensibly sturdy. Keith understood now, why Lance and Pidge used Hunk as a stand in for a marble pillar. In a competition between the two, Keith would bet on Hunk. 

Harmless. 

He should have known it was too good to last. 

“Jeez, there you guys are!” 

Lance arrived in typical Lance fashion, barging into the room and nearly falling face first onto a mechanical landmine. Hunk’s ‘Look out!’ gave the blue paladin enough warning to pull up short and take the long way around, complaining the whole way. 

“Everybody disappears on me. I expected as much from Keith, but Pidge? Well, maybe Pidge.” He reconsidered. “Hunk however,” Lance leaned over the back of the couch to the right of Hunk’s head. “What betrayal is this?” 

Hunk laughed, explaining the training program and new videos as Keith gratefully eyed the distance between himself and the blue paladin. 

“You could have asked me,” Lance pouted, “I am a stellar pilot and sharpshooter...”

Keith snorted. He couldn’t help it. Lance was in a room ten seconds and the third thing out of this mouth was how great he was. Why? Why did Keith like him? 

“Something to say over there?” Lance shot up, taking Keith’s disparaging the wrong way. “If I remember correctly, only one of us dropped out of the Garrison.” 

And there it was. Reason 5 or 8 or 42 why Keith should never, ever, talk to Lance about anything. This idiotic rivalry. At least Keith knew his lines. 

“You’re right,” Keith said, ignoring Pidge’s sharp elbow. “It’s a shame all that extra training didn’t do you any favors.”

“Excuse me?” 

“You heard me.” 

Any other evening, that was Keith’s cue to storm out the room. Their lives were scripted; insult, counter insult, exit castle hallway left and try not to relive the conversation over and over in his room, trying to figure out what he did to earn Lance’s ire.

Keith realized too little, too late, he would be doing no such thing with Pidge and Hunk hemming him in. He settled for leaning forward and leveling a glare at Lance’s stupid face. Lance met his gaze with narrowed blue eyes, stupid lips twisted to the side, eyebrows furrowed in a way that would have been unfairly cute if it was directed at anyone but him. 

Keith swallowed. He couldn’t show weakness, not here, but he was positive Hunk could feel every muscle in his body tense. 

“Enough,” Pidge’s voice cut between them. “You’re both idiots. Shuddup or make a better flight pattern if you’re so smart. I’m trying to concentrate.” 

Lance huffed, but saw wisdom in not further provoking the smallest member of the team. “Like any of us know how Shiro and Allura come up with this.”

“I do.” 

Lance and Keith turned as one to look at Hunk. 

“Since when?” Lance demanded. 

“I was having a hard time following the patterns, so I asked Coran to show me how the program works.” Hunk shrugged. “Can’t say it worked though. I still have to go over it a million times before it makes sense.” 

“Dude, who cares? Show me!” Lance exclaimed.

“Yeah man, no problem!” Hunk grinned, “get over here.” 

Keith was painfully aware the screen in question was currently resting on a pillow in his lap and Hunk had made no move to pick it up. 

To Keith’s horror, Lance did not take a seat on Hunk’s armrest. Instead, he took two steps to the left and clambered over the back of the couch, dropping into the space beside Keith. He spared no time smashing into Keith’s space, using Keith’s shoulder to steady himself. Hunk started pointing out the different functions, contagious excitement mirrored on his face.

Time splintered. Keith couldn’t tell one second from the next as Lance leaned over, tracing crossing designs on the screen. The screen in Keith’s lap. If Lance turned his head, not even very far, they would be nose to nose. Eye to eye. Lip to – 

Keith startled when Pidge dug a screwdriver into his ankle, but the shock reminded him to breathe. Miraculously, nobody else noticed. 

This was it. This was how he died. Keith was two or three unsteady heartbeats away from – screaming? bolting? spontaneous combustion? – when one more voice added to the mix. 

“And what’s going on in here?” 

Shiro. Relief ballooned in Keith’s chest. Shiro would save him. Their leader stood at the entrance to the kitchen, arms crossed. 

“Hunk’s teaching!” Lance exclaimed, bumping Keith with his elbow. Keith fixed his eyes on a point in the middle distance – not Lance’s hair, which looked incredibly soft, but could use a wash – and forgot how to blink. 

Lance carried on, oblivious. “I had no idea this program was so complicated? Designing 3 dimensional conflict is cool.” 

“What’s this now?” Shiro said, giving Pidge a wide berth as he rounded the group. Coming to a rest behind Keith, Shiro leaned over for a better view. 

For reasons unknown, Keith found he could breathe a little better. Every casual, brotherly shoulder pat Shiro dropped on Keith came rushing at the edges of his mind. _We’re basically family,_ Keith had said to someone, _I can’t give up on him._ Or maybe he just told himself. Over and over. Family was allowed to be close, supposed to be close. 

In theory. Keith didn’t have a definition of what could charitably be called ‘family’. He had Disney movies playing in the background of another adoption agency waiting room. He had the smiles between kids and parents at the playground, while he hid in the tube slide, hoping he could make this runaway longer than the last. He had another school councilor handing him tissues for a bloody nose, reminding him not all adults were bad, people wanted to help him. 

Unexpectedly, Shiro’s hand landed on the top of his head. Apparently with Lance and Hunk taking up all the shoulder real estate, Shiro would settle for ruffling Keith’s hair.

Keith was fairly certain his soul was about to detach and abandon his shaking body on the couch. He was surrounded, in the complete and total sense of the word, by other people. Not once before, not in his whole life, had he dealt with a situation like this one. 

There was talking and teasing going on around him. Lance had done something dumb with the simulator, pressed in a long line up against Keith. Keith could feel every breath the blue paladin took, skinny ribs rising and falling at his side. Hunk was laughing. Shiro was too, hiding it better. Even Pidge twisted around to see what the fuss was about, sending Keith a not-so-sympathetic smirk. 

Keith let it wash over him, crashing like waves. Accepted it for what it was. 

And then, that was enough.

Keith escaped without a semblance of grace or dignity, upsetting the screen and Pidge in the same sweeping motion. There were more than a couple yelps, but Keith had committed. He forced his way out of the hand holds and kicked through the minefield of parts within the space of ten seconds. 

“Keith-?” 

Keith couldn’t have picked out one confused voice from the next if he wanted to, and he didn’t want to. 

“Night!” 

The parting word tore out of this throat, strangled, and he booked it down the wrong corridor. He set out blindly, feeling the creases and pressure from contact long after warmth fled, leaving his skin burning from embarrassment alone.

Keith made it back to his room in time, barely. 

This was hardly his first panic attack; knowing didn’t make the experience better. If anything, knowing what he was in for made it worse. The gasping, the tears, the surety of his untimely demise because this was going to be the time, the unlikely case, of a person dying from a panic attack. He wondered how long before anybody found his body.

Behind and between all his stutter-stopped breathing, Keith could feel the hands. Phantom touches, hot impressions, somehow comforting and disconcerting altogether. What the fuck did he want?

Eventually his body burned out. Gasping turned to shuddering breaths, his eyes ceased leaking. Keith got up and promptly fell back down, pins and needles crawling up his legs. 

With a disgusted sigh, he heaved himself onto the bed and set about examining the fascinating repetition of ceiling blocks as his eyelids drooped. He didn’t bother changing. Too much effort. He was exhausted, nothing for it, but he doubted sleep would come anytime soon. 

Keith didn’t know how much time passed before Pidge appeared. Keith studiously ignored the knocking for a few minutes, but realized Pidge would likely try the vents next. He didn’t need a lurking fear of Pidge bursting from the wall tonight, thanks. 

They came in and gave him a once over. 

Keith knew how he looked. Clothes rumpled, eyes red, hair trashed from his tugging and twisting. Pidge didn’t comment. 

“So that...could have gone better.” 

Keith collapsed back onto his made bed with a groan. Snatching a pillow with excessive force, Keith buried his face underneath and muttered darkly into the blankets.

Pidge perched next to him, patting his back. Slowly, tension leaked out of Keith. Which made the mess in his head worse. 

Why this? How could a hand on his back feel so grounding, but hands on his shoulders was an overload? What was wrong with him? 

“Keith?” The pillow shielding him from a worse fate was lifted. “I can hear you thinking. Frankly, I’m a little concerned.” 

“Sorry.” 

The mattress ate up most of his apology, but Pidge gathered the gist of it. They hummed, thoughtful. “I covered for you.”

Keith unburied his head to narrow his eyes at Pidge, suspicious. It was too early to be thankful. “How?” 

“Said you weren’t feeling great and had a headache earlier. You were already pretty red.” 

“And they bought that?”

“Lance did,” Pidge said dismissively. “Isn’t that what matters?” 

Keith hated that they were right. 

“Thanks.”

“No problem.” 

Keith was mentally preparing for another conversation, but Pidge maintained their silence, content to sit with their hand resting aimlessly on Keith’s back. Maybe they had taken pity, or given up. Keith couldn’t be sure, but he wasn’t looking for answers tonight. 

He meant to rest his eyes for a second, but between one breath and the next he stopped fighting and fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it begins. 
> 
> updates are irregular and inconsistent: you have been warned. just because I have an amazing beta (*finger guns as sarah*) and a fully outlined plot does not mean I won't find ways to muck this up. I am sorry in advance. 
> 
> comments are lifeblood :)


	2. Lion Hangar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> greetings. todays episode it brought to you by the google search 'what space dangerous'. you think I'm kidding. (the WIRED article was p good) 
> 
> this is the beginning of all the not so nice things that happen to our poor paladins <3

When the inevitable emergency signal came broadcasting through space, Keith had to suppress the urge to do the smallest of victory dances in his room. 

Lance had no such decorum. The blue paladin was practically prancing as they sprinted through the Castle, Allura’s voice over the intercom. 

“The ship is Adrath design and their emergency signal ended directly after we made contact.”

“They friendly?” Keith asked, tugging a section of armor plating over his knee.

“The Adrath were part of the Alliance in the past,” Allura confirmed. “Records we obtained from a prior mission indicate they were wiped out by Galra forces for participating in an uprising 200 years ago.”

“Then it’s a good thing the records are wrong,” Shiro said, fixing the material of his suit where it snagged on his prosthetic arm with short, practiced motions. “We can always use more allies. Have we detected other ships in the area?” 

“No,” Allura continued. “The ship appears to be alone, trapped in the gravitational field of a neutron star.” 

“Damn.” Keith turned to Pidge, who was struggling with a shoulder plate. “Neutron stars are one of the densest known bodies in the universe.”

“You are correct!” Coran’s voice joined Allura. Keith shoved his helmet on, adjusting when his bangs blocked his view. He wasn’t the only one fussing; Hunk had forgotten to take off his headband. 

“This one’s particularly nasty!” Coran sounded, as usual, a bit too excited about the imminent danger of a space phenomenon. “It has been attracting a great deal of junk floating around the system – created something of a trash vortex! A veritable ready-made disaster of swirling garbage, capable of yanking ships off course and dragging them into a crushing void!” 

Hunk groaned. 

“Yes, thank you Coran,” Allura cut in. “The ship appears to be without power, and we cannot evacuate a vessel this size with the Lions. They will need to dock with the Castle.”

“Affirmative,” Shiro said. “Everyone to your Lions. Formation 3, we will decide the next step from there.” 

There were various noises of accent as they headed to their zip lines. The itch building under Keith’s skin for the last week was finally, finally abating. He landed in his Lion and woke the massive robotic beast with a few commands. Red rumbled, structure shivering with a purr, sharing his enthusiasm. Keith wasn’t sure how sentient the Lions were but knew Red was equally impatient for a change of pace. 

The plan was sorted out swiftly, problem straightforward: one ship pulled toward a star, barraged by high velocity space junk. If they kept the worst of the cloud from smashing the Adrath ship, allowing them to dock with the Castle, the day was saved. 

Lance was beside himself as they flew out. 

“This is just like Space Invaders!”

“Like what?” 

“Keith, please,” Lance said, disbelief leaking into their shared connection. “We all know you have the entertainment literacy of a duck, but you have to have heard of the late 1970s classic. It’s a video game.”

Keith sighed, irritation mingling with something else at Lance’s overblown incredulousness. A duck? Really? “Can’t say I have.” 

“You’ve never been to an arcade? Did you have a childhood?” 

Lance’s question caught Keith off guard. Keith twitched and brought his focus to the controls, grasping every shred of potential self pity and stuffing it in a bag to keep from broadcasting that emotion to the others. Fortunately, Lance was preoccupied, starting a weird _‘doot doot doot doo’_ chant over the radio. 

“Chatter.” Shiro spoke before Keith could formulate a snappy retort. “We’re approaching the neutron star. This isn’t the same as taking down Galra fighters, pay attention to how your shots affect the surrounding area.”

“Affirmative,” Keith replied. 

“Got it,” Hunk said, followed by Pidge chiming in, “Will do!” Lance was last, with a lazy, “Nothing to it.”

Keith let that one go as they approached the neutron star. The star wasn’t bright, like he expected. A whirling storm of oddly shaped projectiles clumped around it, moving in disconcerting patterns that weakened the blue glow. Keith was caught off guard by the colors. An amalgamation of different hues splattered ship parts and other, unidentifiable shapes. Many were smaller than his scans could lock onto, others rivaled individual towers of the Castle. 

“Paladins, I’ve uploaded the Adrath ship’s location to your Lions,” Allura announced. Keith checked his readout, found the ship about two thirds of the way through the spinning cloud.

“Get ready team,” Shiro started, “We’re more effective flying independently in this storm than forming Voltron. Watch your section, keep vigilant and we’ll get these people to safety.”

They split formation, taking positions around the Castle’s vulnerable spots. Entering the storm, the debris started sparse but increased exponentially.

As they moved deeper, Keith adjusted from picking individual targets with his laser blasts to watching all potential targets, reacting on instinct. He kept an eye on the other paladins, providing the occasional warning and receiving a few in turn. 

The approach to the Adrath ship was faster than Keith expected. It wasn’t until they began shepherding the powerless ship to the Castle did Keith notice the increased tug of gravity, disproportionate to the star’s proximity. 

Hunk and Shiro took point bumping the ship towards the hangar. Lance and Keith darted around, picking off threats, while Pidge roved in tight patterns around the Castle. Lance let out a whoop as the ship slid neatly into the hangar. 

“Stay focused team,” Shiro said, doing a poor job keeping the pride out of his voice. “Let’s get the Castle out of this storm before we celebrate.”

“Come on Shiro, we got this!” Lance said, exhilaration trumping his usual superiority. “We saved a whole ship from certain doom in record time. Mission accomplished, high score and everything!”

Keith targeted another block of wreckage, destroying it with a satisfying burst of flame, and wondered how hard he had to roll his eyes for it to pass through the mental link. Lance was perpetually ready to call for a win, optimistic in every way. It was kind of endearing. And frustrating. Keith wasn’t about to admit it over the com link, but he was inclined to agree with Lance today. It was difficult to fight this adrenaline rush and sense of accomplishment. He could ride a high like this for a few days at least. 

Except Shiro was right. It had been too soon to call for celebration. 

When the Adrath crew exited their ship, Allura and Coran learned a set of escape pods –loaded with the youngest members of the expedition, children and an expecting mother– had been launched minutes before Team Voltron arrived. The desperate crew had believed the smaller escape pods could use the last reserve of emergency fuel to break free of the neutron stars pull. 

Their predictions were wrong; now several pods were trapped in a lower layer of swirling space junk, dropping closer and closer to fiery destruction. 

Allura related all of this as the paladins continued their rotating sentry. Shiro immediately ordered everyone to hold in their current zones as Allura scanned for the lost crafts. All four were located in a matter of minutes, unique design notable amid the chaos. They were too small to attract debris as the larger ships did, hadn’t sustained critical damage. Yet. 

Coran and Pidge dominated chatter on the coms, relaying numbers and possible flight paths.

This would take too long, Keith realized, glancing between targets and the crush of parts, growing distant as the Castle pulled away. Running scans and calculating escape velocities was time consuming, if the math was even possible. 

It had to be him. 

His imagination was too vivid, too ready to paint a picture of what was happening in the Lion Hangar. Parents, members of the Adrath crew, pleading with Coran, begging the Alteans to do something to get the pods back and save their kids. Family members out of their minds with guilt, knowing whatever promises they made to the children _-you’ll be alright-_ (and the lies) _-I’ll see you again soon-_ were broken and lost and it was their fault. Nobody else to blame.

Keith didn’t have a death wish, not all the time, but if a suicide mission was the line he crossed to keep families together, well. 

There were worse ways to go. 

While Shiro and the others debated, Keith cut and run.

“Hunk, cover the left flank for me.”

Keith didn’t wait for an answer, manipulating his controls and plunging his Lion back into the vortex. 

Lance noticed first. “Keith, the hell are you doing?”

Keith hesitated to reply, increasing his speed fractionally as he dodged around in the maze of shifting wreckage. He knew this was right, but he doubted the others would understand.

“Keith. Return to your position.” Shiro’s tone brooked no argument. 

There was a time, not so long ago, Keith would have jumped for the chance to follow any order Shiro had to give. Part of him, the part that was a little scared, wished he still felt that way. 

“No.” Keith took a deep breath. They would figure it out pretty fast anyways. “I’m getting the escape pods.” 

“Oh no. No, no, no,” Hunk started. 

“Keith, we don’t know if that’s possible given the star’s chemical makeup! Just give me a minute.” Pidge insisted, voice strained. 

“We don’t have time to crunch numbers!” Keith answered, hating Pidge’s short intake of breath. “Red is the most maneuverable, the rest of you stay back.” 

“Keith–” Shiro’s voice was as close to panic as Keith had ever heard. 

“I can do this!” Keith yelled, hoping the others couldn’t tell he was trying to convince himself as much as them. “Just trust me!” Flipping the boosters, Red jerked out of the way to avoid half a cargo ship. The first escape pod careened into view, Keith snagged it cleanly in Red’s claws before it tumbled out of reach. 

“One coming your way!” 

Unleashing a jet of flames to clear a path, he batted the pod back towards the Castle. Keith wasted no time watching the small ships trajectory. They made it or they didn’t, he had to get to the other three before it was too late. 

Proximity warnings flashed; gravity was bending unnaturally the deeper he flew. The laws of physics took a backseat as obstacles erratically darted around the neutron star. Red was shaking with every hit she took and Keith’s fingers slipped over the unsteady controls. 

The other paladins had stopped shouting, but the sheer volume of worry projected over their link was distracting. In five minutes, Keith returned three of the four escape pods, the final sharp blue dot spinning in the corner of his view screen. Pidge had uploaded a pulsing red line across his visor as well, shrouding the neutron star in a damp light. Keith didn’t have to ask what it stood for. 

The last pod was drifting unacceptably close to the point of no return, dancing between each side of the line like a raft bobbing on red water. Keith dove and spun, but his target was traveling in disjointed patterns, difficult to predict. He was grateful the others stayed back, gritting his teeth as another piece of rubble bounced off Red’s flank. 

“Keith, look out!” 

Pidge’s warning wasn’t enough. A dilapidated freighter twice the size of Keith’s Lion swung from an impossible angle in his peripheral. Keith didn’t have time to gasp, much less react as it impacted. His head whiplashed in the accelerator chair, helmet smacking into the headrest with an audible crunch. Keith’s world cut to black. 

-

Keith woke up to the sound of static shouts. If this was death, death looked a lot like the inside of his cockpit, and smelled a lot like sweat and blood.

He tried to blink, but one of his eyes refused to cooperate. The chair shook, pushing him to the side. Keith’s head ached, sharp and blinding, and for a moment Keith considered dropping back into whatever hazy nothing he came from. 

“Keith? Keith! Can you–hear...say something... Ke–” 

Voices crackled, a glitch running through the words. Keith was tired, so fucking tired, but he did his best to follow along. 

“Keith! I swear if you don’t answer right now I’m going to kick your ass–” 

Lance. It had to be Lance. Keith smiled lazily. Lance would make threats now. The blue paladin didn’t sound nearly as convincing as he had in the past. Keith filed that away with a similar lack of urgency. 

Bringing a hand to his throbbing face, Keith was surprised to find no resistance from his visor, hand passing through the shattered covering. Despite the flickering lights, Keith could make out blood on his fingers, felt the sticky residue as he rubbed where his eye was sealed shut. 

To the soundtrack of somebody fighting to establish control of the coms– possibly Shiro– Keith forced his other eye open. The view screen was empty of the usual electric details. Keith could see wreckage looping, his own view tilting haphazardly. Between a cracked thruster and decent sized space rock, Keith recognized the final escape pod. 

Particulars trickled back as voices in his head cut in and out. The escape pod. He’d flown back into the neutron star’s gravity well to save the escape pods. Watching it spin in front of him, Keith found himself rationalizing without a great deal of empathy. Three out of four wasn’t bad. Besides, it was too late now. The red line may be gone, but he was sure they fell into that red sea while he was unconscious. Point of no return. 

The others were still yelling, but Keith couldn’t speak around the lump lodged in this throat. He was going to die.

Tears started to prick at the corner of his eyes. He should say something – but what? There wasn’t anything he could say that wouldn’t break his team more. Better they thought he died on impact instead of dragged into a fucking void, slowly facing a crushing death all by himself. 

Lance’s voice sparked over the radio again. “I’m going in–”

Keith’s heart lurched. 

“Lance, don’t!” Keith hardly recognized the sound of his own voice as he jerked forward, straining against the restraints. “Please!” 

“Lance!” Hunk was obviously crying. “Don’t, he’s gone–” 

Keith's relief mingled with shock. Sure, he agreed with Hunk, but the Yellow Paladins words hit him as wrong. 

“I don’t care!”

“Keith’s not saying anything! I can’t feel him and neither can you Lance so stop FUCKING AROUND! Get the FUCK BACK HERE AND–.” 

If Keith could have chosen between having his internal organs ripped out of his chest, or erasing the sound of Pidge screaming over his com, he would have taken mutilation. Their voice cut out with a long hiss.

“Guys?” Keith asked, struck by a realization. “Wait – can – Can you not hear me? Shiro? Lance?” Keith couldn’t catch his breath. 

Pidge was right. He couldn’t feel them either, and no matter how hard he slammed the controls, the Red Lion wasn’t responding. 

“–already lost one paladin today, Lance, do not make it two.” Allura was deadly. 

“Sorry, kind of busy,” Lance quipped. “We can talk when I–”

The connection broke, this time without a crack or hiss. Just silence. 

“No.” Keith said, because this couldn’t be happening, the quiet was killing him as quickly as it fell. “No, no, no.” 

Keith searched, helplessly, among the twisted junkyard, clinging to the armrests as Red drifted. 

“Please Lance, please, please don’t,” the words were falling from his lips in a steady stream, as if saying Lance’s name one more time could stop him from his futile rescue mission. 

Nobody was there to hear, nobody was listening, nobody answered Keith’s frantic wishing. Far too soon Keith caught a glimpse of the Blue Lion, corkscrewing out of sight. 

“Shit, shit, Lance what are you doing, what you doing...” 

Keith’s hands balled into shaking fists. He searched, eyes wide despite the pain threatening to split his skull. He couldn’t focus, couldn’t think, if anybody was saved it should be the other pod. 

Keith’s stomach dropped. The other pod. He could still see it, traveling in synchronous orbit with his Lion, not even far away now. The moment he caught sight, he felt his Lion shake in a decidedly not-small-impact way. 

“Lance what the fuck, Lance what are you doing?” Keith kept talking, as if the blue paladin could hear him. “Don’t do this– don’t leave them– I’m not worth it– LANCE. _LANCE._ ” 

Keith cut off with a choked sob, tears spilling, gumming up his bad eye as blood mixed with salt. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t what he wanted, couldn’t be what any of them wanted. They had families to go back to, and Keith – Keith didn’t have anyone. Nobody was going to miss him. 

Red jerked, view swinging wildly as the Blue Lion shoved away from the neutron star. They careened off larger pieces of debris, gaining momentum from one to the next. Gradually, the space trash thinned out, Castle looming. 

The return flight was brief, but provided all the time Keith needed to force down his tears and fill that void with flat, buzzing anger. Lance had the choice between the Adrath children and Keith, and he had chosen wrong. Keith was actually going to kill him. 

When his Lion was deposited on the floor of the hanger, a couple minutes passed while the others found a way to open his damaged Lion. Keith could see through the view screen, Adrath gathered around the three escape pods he successfully returned. Small figures holding tight to taller figures. Keith looked away, pacing back and forth in the confines of his cockpit. He pulled his shattered helmet off, ignoring a wave of dizziness. He couldn’t pass out right now. 

With an unexpected shudder, the floor shifted, familiar adjustment when the jaw of his Lion opened. Maybe there was an emergency release he didn’t know about. Didn’t matter right now. Tripping down the steps, Keith stormed out of his Lion.

Keith had half a second before something slammed into him. He would have gone down if the arms holding him weren’t crushing him in a death grip, pushing the air out of him. 

“ _Holyshit_ whatthefuck _ohmygod_ KEITH.”

Keith registered Lance’s voice in his ear before the fact that Lance was the one who latched onto him formed as a cohesive thought. 

“Wha-?” 

Keith couldn’t finish a word before a second body crashed into him, significantly shorter. Followed by a heavier third. They all started talking at once. 

“Keith what the hell was that!”

“Dude I thought you were a goner?” 

“That was such a bad idea.”

“What if you died?” 

Armor was digging uncomfortably into his side, his arms were pinned and Keith’s head was spinning from the onslaught of his fellow paladins, noise erupting around him. 

“Stop-” Keith got out, trying to push away. “Guys–”

“You can’t do that to us,” Pidge said, yanking on his arm as Hunk gripped Keith’s shoulder tighter, nodding emphatically. 

“To you– what about–” Keith spluttered. 

“Jeez, man,” Lance said, and frowned. He shifted to hold Keith at arms length. “Shit, that looks like it hurts.”

“That’s not important– that’s– get off!” Keith managed to twist free, chest heaving. The three paladins stepped back, expressions ranging from confused to hurt. 

“What the hell was I doing? What the hell did you do?” Keith jabbed a finger at Lance, pushing past the way his hand visibly shook. “You left them! I was right next to the last escape pod and you fucking left them!”

“Keith–” Lance’s eyes were huge, but Keith was having none of it. 

“What were you _thinking_?” Keith was tearing up again, his voice cracking. “Why would you do that? I’m not worth– why did you save _me?_ ” 

“Keith.” Pidge grabbed him as he swayed. “Lance didn’t leave anybody. Only three of the pods had occupants. One of them was a misfire.”  
Keith stared. Slowly, very slowly, like a sink on the verge of overflowing, Pidge’s words filtered into his brain. Keith blinked. He turned to Lance. 

“Then you didn’t...?” 

Lance shook his head, looking scared. The expression didn’t suit him. 

“Oh.” 

Keith’s head hurt. What Pidge said made sense, sort of, but he couldn’t process the weird vacuum of emotions falling apart within him. He was so angry a minute ago, so scared the minute before, so sure he was going to die before that. 

“Keith.” 

Keith glanced up and found Shiro beside him; the others moved closer as well. 

“That was incredibly brave of you,” Shiro said. Moving slowly, so Keith had a chance to pull away if he wanted, Shiro put a hand on Keith’s shoulder. “And incredibly dangerous. You’re grounded.”

Pidge gave a watery giggle, followed by a light smack on the arm. “You scared us, asshole.” 

“Yeah man you can’t scare me like that again I don’t think I’ll make it,” Hunk said from behind Pidge. “That was the most scared I’ve ever been in my life. Like ever. Probably in the next life too.” 

Keith felt his face flush, mixing unpleasantly with the head rush. “I guess...I mean...” Keith struggled, looking between them. He found himself unsteadily leaning further into Shiro’s hand. “I’m sorry?” 

“Yeah, well, it’s a good thing I was here to save the day.” Lance was directly in front of Keith, less than a foot away. The blue paladin’s grin slipped as he met Keith’s eyes, something else playing across his features. “Just... don’t try and play hero by yourself next time, okay? We need you.”

Keith took a shuddering breath and tried to nod, but it didn’t quite work. They needed him? Lance needed him? That was... not unexpected. Of course they needed him to form Voltron. That was it, Keith figured weakly. That was why they were all standing around him looking like they were about to cry. 

“O-okay.” 

“Good enough,” Shiro said. “Now let’s get Coran to look at that gash.” 

Keith made to nod again when pain in the side of his head flared. A small sound caught in his throat, his vision whiting out. He tipped forward, overbalanced, and fell directly into Lance. 

“Whoa there,” Lance caught him, slipping an arm under Keith’s shoulder like it was the most natural thing in the world. If Keith had any shred of emotional capacity left, he would have overloaded right then and there. Shiro stepped over to support his other side, shutting down half of the panic. Between the two of them they half-carried, half-supported Keith’s stumbling to the medical bay. 

When they finally made it, Keith had to actively repress the urge to chase after Lance’s touch. He sat heavily on a raised table instead, as Coran bounced around him with unidentifiable instruments. 

Lance offered to stay. Shiro needed to check on the rescued crew of Adrath, but promised Keith he would come back and check on him, leaving with another solid shoulder pat. Then it was just him, Coran and Lance. 

“Lance, my boy, could you grab me a towel?” Coran waved in the direction of a few drawers. “Need to get this blood off Keith’s face! Can’t feel too good, now could it? Get it damp in the sink, over there!”

Keith didn’t respond to anything as Coran maintained his stream of consciousness. Uncharacteristically, Lance had remained silent after Shiro left. 

Coran delegated cleaning Keith’s face to Lance with a flourish. Keith suddenly, blearily, wished Lance hadn't gone to the trouble of saving him. Facing the overwhelming certainty of his own mortality hadn't done a damn thing to lessen this crush. Great. 

In the past Keith had dealt with Rivalry Lance and Angry Lance and Sarcastic Lance, but this new Lance; Keith didn't know what to do with him. Lance without an edge, wearing the furthest thing from a smile or a frown. With the throbbing behind his eyes, Keith wouldn’t immediately categorize it as concern, but there were some signs. Beneath the sweaty mess of helmet hair, Lance’s eyebrows were drawn, little furrow between them. He was worrying the corner of his lip and watching Keith very closely.

When Lance put his hand on the side of Keith's face to steady his head, Keith knew he wasn’t going to last. Lance’s hand was cool and a little sweaty, touch light as he tilted Keith's head to the side

"Tell me if I'm hurting you, kay?"

"Mmm." 

Pain. Pain was Keith's new best friend. The tiny jabs from his temple gave him a grounding point, needle sharp reminders to breathe and not pass out on Lance for a second time. Keith plastered a neutral mask across his face and held onto it for everything he was worth. 

“Keith? Are you feeling alright?” Coran bounded back over. “Your heart rate is quite elevated.” 

Fuck.

Lance froze. “I told you to say something if it hurt!” 

Keith shrugged one shoulder, avoiding eye contact. Which was considerably more difficult than usual given Lance essentially had Keith’s face in his hands. 

Coran traded places with Lance, peered at the side of Keith’s face. “Ooooh, that would be from the visor. Used to be shatter resistant! I suppose sitting in storage for 10,000 years might have affected the suits integrity. Still not sure how you managed to break it...”

Keith didn’t know either. Didn’t care. His face hurt, his head was spinning and he wanted nothing more than a long shower and to be left alone. 

“Hmm, we should have hanzaki around here somewhere.” Coran left, rifling through the supplies with vigor. 

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Lance asked, voice surprisingly low.

Keith opened his mouth but no words materialized. He was even less prepared to answer what came next. 

“Is it me?” Lance was quieter than Keith ever heard him, fidgeting with the towel. “I’m not... trying to hurt you.”

Keith couldn’t fathom a more loaded statement. Lance, self proclaimed rival and perpetual pain in the ass, king of the universe, insecure? About Keith?

“No, its–” Keith’s voice was horribly raspy. He cleared his throat. “it’s okay. Uh, I can’t really focus right now?” He didn’t mean to phrase it as a question. Fuck, he was too tired for this. “Sorry.” 

“No– I wasn’t looking for an apology.” Lance said, backtracking. “You didn’t do anything. Well, you did something extraordinarily stupid,” he amended, “but I’m mostly pissed off you went for them before I did.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Lance said, rubbing the back of his neck. The room was very quiet. Coran had mysteriously disappeared. 

Keith couldn’t follow. “But you...you have a family.” 

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“They would miss you.” Keith insisted, “if you didn’t go back to Earth. You shouldn’t take risks like that.”

Lance frowned. “What are you talking about?”

Keith didn’t know how to make it any clearer, so he just stared at Lance. That boy had the most ridiculously blue eyes. 

“Keith, do you think people wouldn’t miss you?” Lance sounded genuinely upset. 

“I don’t have a family.” Keith said. It wasn’t strictly true, but he didn’t have anyone waiting for him, so it was the same. 

“What about all of us?”

“Us?” 

“Yes, us,” Lance said, exasperated. “Pidge. Shiro. Allura and Coran. Me and Hunk.” 

“Hunk and I,” Keith muttered, some useless part of his brain filling his mouth with words. 

Lance snorted. “Unbelievable. Keith, listen. No, really.” Lance’s hand returned to Keith’s face, brought his face up so they were eye to eye. Keith’s breath caught. “I don’t care about who is or isn’t waiting for you on Earth. We’re your family now, and you can’t abandon us like that. You scared the shit out of Hunk and Pidge. Shiro too.”

Later, Keith would blame it on the blunt force trauma. “Just them?” 

Lance paused. “No, doofus,” he smiled, and Keith could have sworn Lance looked fond. “Scared me too.” 

The universe took pity on Keith’s poor, suffering heart and the door to the med bay clicked open. Allura swept in with Coran and Lance jumped back from Keith like he’d been shocked. Lance remained, hovering in the background as the Princess examined Keith, running a few more scans. She told him very kindly a few pieces of glass from the shattered visor were embedded in the side of his face, and it would be easier to remove them if he was unconscious. 

Keith could barely keep his eyes open as Allura talked. He might have agreed to something, swallowed the pill Coran passed him without question. The last thing he remembered was Lance steadying him as he slumped over on the table. He must have started hallucinating by the end of it. That was the only way to explain Lance’s grip on his hand, the reassuring squeeze he gave as Keith’s world fogged over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah sorry not sorry 
> 
> thanks for stopping by! I love each and every one of you. MOSTLY SARAH THO<33333 my beta is best. 
> 
> I stand by the logic of more comments = increased likelihood of posting faster. the dream remains weekly but we all know how that story ends. 
> 
> (but you knew that)


	3. Room 6314

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey party people. welcome to the aftermath aka Boys&Pidge Need to Talk About Their Feelings: anxiety edition. Check the tags, a couple updates. 
> 
> also
> 
> Hi and hello to my fellow ace friends!! There has been a HUGE outpouring of support in the comments! Where did y’all come from, I’m so happy you’re here :D but really thank you for putting words out there, it's hard to share sometimes and I’m super honored people are talking about it. And everybody else, you are super valid too, thank you for being awesome and giving my fic a chance.
> 
> tl;dr
> 
> Yes, I am ace. You are beautiful people and I love hearing from you! :O

Shiro came back to visit Keith as promised. Keith woke up in the med bay that morning with Coran buzzing around, the Altean insisted Keith stay a couple hours for ‘observation’. Keith didn’t follow, there wasn’t anything to observe beside him dozing with a couple blankets on a weirdly exposed table in the middle of the room. As far as he knew, picking at the collection of jagged scratches on his face was the worst trouble he could cause.

When Shiro walked in mid-morning Keith was equal parts tired and aggressively bored. Coran had an impressive collection of monologues. Keith knew more about Altean flora and fauna than was strictly necessary. If an Altean version of Trivial Pursuit existed, Keith was set.

To make matters worse, the black uniform they wore under their armor was clinging to his skin where sweat dried. There was an awful moment of realization an hour ago, but Keith was viciously refusing to think about who removed the plates of his armor. 

Shiro greeted him with a smile and gave him the run-down of the Adrath crew: they wanted to meet and thank him. Keith begged Shiro not to make him go. It could have been the fear in his eyes or the blood immediately draining from Keith’s face, but Shiro abandoned his good intentions without a fight. 

Avoiding a lecture was not so easy. Keith settled in and accepted Shiro’s ready made, I’m-Not-Mad-I’m-Disappointed speech as meekly as possible. It was a little awkward being lectured sitting on a table. Keith’s feet didn’t quite touch the floor; with his hands in his lap Keith felt like he was playing at grown up, climbing on a table to be eye level with an adult. Which made no sense given he wasn’t that much shorter than Shiro. 

“Does that make sense?” 

Keith nodded. He had turned into a bobble head for the last however-many minutes. His neck was starting to get sore. 

“Good.” Shiro smiled and the honest relief in his eyes made Keith feel a little guilty for not listening closer. “Come here.” 

Keith barely managed to find his footing as he was dragged into Shiro’s hold with a thump. Surprised, Keith tensed on an inhale. Shiro didn’t let go, he knew Keith better than that. He waited with his arms around Keith’s shoulders as Keith fucking melted on the exhale. 

Before this insanity, long before Garrison and before he knew Shiro, Keith learned to protect himself the hard way. When people pushed him away, Keith pushed back. Built walls and sewed spines to his skin with crossed arms and flat looks. 

Keith could abandon these kinds of defenses whenever Shiro crushed the life out of him. It didn’t matter that Keith’s arms were trapped awkwardly between them or that Keith never really learned to hug back; a hug was a hug and Shiro hugged like he knew Keith woke up holding onto sanity by a thread.

Keith shut his eyes and squished his face into Shiro’s shirt, finding the details. Texture of material, smell of clean clothes, Shiro breathing on his hair, how Shiro never held as tightly with his prosthetic arm, anything Keith could do to get out of his head and grounded in his own body. 

Keith wasn’t measuring any kind of time, just leeching every iota of heat and clear headspace he could from Shiro. When Coran dropped something loudly they both startled. Shiro chuckled dryly, tightened his grip for a moment and let Keith go. 

“I’m here if you need me.” He said, loud enough for Keith alone to hear.

Keith didn’t know how to respond to that, but Shiro wasn’t bothered. “Hold on while I talk to Coran.”

“Alright.” 

Keith wrapped his arms around himself in a vain attempt to hold onto the feeling of closeness as Shiro walked away. It didn’t work. 

“Psssst.” 

Keith turned and found Pidge crouched by the doorway. They ducked low and hurried across the room as Shiro approached Coran, using Keith’s table for cover. 

“Impressive,” they whispered, “you broke the Dad-Lecture record. Lance is dethroned. He will be crushed.”

“From when he hooked music to the Lion connection and played Beyoncé?”

“The time he went back for those prisoners after getting shot beat that by 15 seconds.”

“You don’t say.” Keith pondered this. “What are you doing?” 

“Quiet. And don’t look at me.” 

Keith shut his mouth, gazing at random points around the room. 

“Subtle.”

Keith sighed but played along, dropping his voice. “Why are you hiding?”

“Shiro told us to give you some space since what happened was terrible and you needed to process but...I kinda figured otherwise,” Pidge said. 

Keith swallowed a scream. Pidge figured correct. The last thing he wanted was to be alone in his head right now.

“Also, you look really pathetic. Like microwaved death.” 

“Thanks.” 

“You’re welcome.” 

Keith paused as Shiro glanced over. Shiro offered an encouraging smile that Keith attempted to return. It was debatable how well that worked, but Shiro seemed satisfied. Keith waited for Coran’s discussion with Shiro to reach another high point to mutter: “Do you have a plan?”

“Do you know how long Coran is planning on keeping you here?”

"No," Keith said, running a hand through his greasy hair. He wanted to go to his room. A shut door between him and the world sounded heavenly. 

"Need help with your escape?" 

Keith hung his head. "God yes.” 

"There is a modification on the plasma line beneath the kitchen I could test..." Keith could hear their devious smile. Carefully they shuffled back towards the open door. "Wait for my signal." 

Keith considered asking what signal, but doubted Pidge would elaborate. He wasn’t familiar with plasma lines. They sounded unstable. 

Keith feigned sleep, waiting. Shiro hadn’t made his own escape when Allura arrived, guiding Coran and Team Voltron’s Leader to have a whispered conversation by the door. They left shortly after. 

Good enough for Keith. He swung off the table, staggered a few feet to the left and righted himself. Pidge was waiting in the hall with a smug expression. Keith didn’t ask about the grease stains between their fingers or the smell of singed hair. There were some mysteries that were better left unsolved. 

They didn’t encounter anyone. Whatever Pidge modified cleared the upper halls of life, which was for the better. Keith began lagging around the halfway point, using the wall for occasional support. Pidge shot him a raised eyebrow, grabbed Keith’s hand and deposited it on their shoulder seeing-eye dog style. 

They continued without further incident. The sound of the door to his room sliding shut released something in Keith, something wound tight. Keith shut his eyes and breathed. 

“Rarely am I sneaking you out of Shiro custody,” Pidge pointed out. Keith didn’t respond. Following hours of continuous Coran chatter echoing around the medical bays high ceilings his room sounded muffled, muted. Why had he left? Shower. Anything for a shower. 

Keith moved around the collected chaos in his room. Trinkets, rocks and miscellaneous items were sprawled across the floor. They mixed indiscriminately with laundry and Keith’s blanket hoarding problem. Same mess as always. 

“Keith?” 

Keith could feel Pidge’s eyes on him. He licked his lips, studied the floor. There had to be a towel around here somewhere. 

“Keith, are you okay?” 

“Yeah.” Keith said, too quickly. “I’m fine. Coran said this,” Keith paused digging through his dirty laundry to gesture at the scrapes decorating his face, “will fade in a few days.”

“That’s not what I meant.” 

Keith sighed and sat down on the floor. “I know. I don’t know yet. Can we just...pretend it didn’t happen?”

Pidge crossed their arms, fixed him with a look.

Keith cringed. “Nevermind.” He bit his lip, searching for an out. “Can I shower first?” 

“I’m not going to stop you.” Pidge said, “but I’m not leaving.”

Keith’s chest ached. “You don’t have to.”

“I know.” Pidge handed Keith the towel he was searching for. “But I am staying.” 

Keith nodded, taking the towel and remembering a change of clothes right before he shut the door. Peeling off the black under-suit was a little gross. They were always sweaty after missions, ancient alien fabric or not. 

Keith finally had his shower. The water was bliss. He would give the Space Castle one thing: decent water pressure. There was a real possibility Keith would have lost his mind over the past months without scalding temperatures and relatively normal showerheads. 

Keith pulled on his pajama pants, dragging the drawstring out for a snug fit on his skinny hips. He was reaching for his shirt when he caught a glimpse of himself in the blurry mirror. It was the first reflective surface he’d come across since the crash. 

His face was a mess. A set of uneven dark scratches featured prominently, scabbing crescent moons drawn with an unsteady razor from above his right temple to below his eye. Bruises bloomed underneath, mottled purple and yellow. A violent reminder of his mistakes. 

Pidge was right, he did look like death warmed over. One mission had aged him beyond his 17 years. He looked off. It wasn’t just the injury. It wasn't lasts night’s bad sleep, or how his pitch dark hair clung to pale and discolored skin. 

What was the word? 

He looked...he wasn't sure. And the longer he stood there, the less he could know. Keith was stuck, stuck in the space between mirrors. He knew the reflection was him but the weight of it, the contradictions and convictions and fear, so much fear, it couldn't possibly fit in one body. _Paralyzed_ might be the word, if Keith had any sense left to think it. He wasn’t there anymore, the face in the mirror was empty. He couldn’t talk, couldn’t move. He just wasn’t. 

Keith didn't react to Pidge knocking on the door, or when they called his name; didn't flinch when they shouldered it open with more strength than Keith credited them for. It wasn't until Pidge started crying Keith began a spiral back to reality because Pidge never cried. Keith looked away from the broken thing in the mirror.

Pidge was an ugly crier. Their tears caught in the bottom frame of their glasses, nose plugged with snot as they sniffled. Keith hadn't found his voice so he did what he could, awkwardly nudging Pidge out of the bathroom. 

Keith and Pidge sat next to the bed, between a stack of scribbled diagrams Pidge left ages ago and errant pillows. White noise was crawling under Keith’s skin, but Pidge was crying, he had to be better than this. Had to. For all the times Pidge had followed him to his room and all the pushy questions they weren’t afraid to ask, Keith had to. 

Pidge was folded tight, arms around their knees, shoulders shaking. Keith carefully removed Pidge’s glasses, pinching the thin wire frames and folding them delicately. Without their glasses Pidge looked younger. One accessory upgraded them from a sobbing, blotchy-faced 14-year-old to the technological genius the team relied on. 

“Hey Pidge.” Keith whispered, pressing their shoulders together. “Hey.” 

Pidge didn’t respond. Keith had been on the flip side of this situation more than once and the role reversal hurt. He did this. He hurt Pidge. At least he knew what to do. 

Keith started small, exaggerating his breathing. Eventually, Pidge matched the long inhales, pauses, and exhales. Tears stopped flowing, Keith heard Pidge switch to breathing through their clogged nose. 

Keith scooted lower and leaned a little closer. When Pidge didn’t pull away Keith put his head on their shoulder, damp hair sticking to their shirt. Pidge released their hands, their arms dropping limply to the floor. One fell on Keith. He picked their hand up without thinking and gave it a squeeze. 

Pidge huffed, but squeezed back. Keith didn’t let go.

Pidge tipped their head over to land on top of Keith’s. “I didn’t think you were coming back.” 

Their voice was wrecked, stuffy from a plugged nose. Keith swallowed hard. “Me either.” 

“Really. There wasn’t any signal from the Red Lion, I couldn’t feel you through the connection–” They took a breath. 

“Yeah, I... I heard.” Keith said quietly. 

“You heard?” 

“The communication link in my helmet was sort of working after the crash,” Keith said, “for a couple minutes.” Guilt twisted around Keith’s gut as Pidge fell silent. Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything. 

“Pidge?”

They sniffed heartily.

“Thanks for staying.”

“Don’t be a dick Keith.” 

“I’m not!”

A couple ticks passed. Pidge found their glasses and began methodically cleaning them with a shirt from one of the piles, rubbing circles long after the glass was free of smudges.

They paused their cleaning. “Never again, right?”

“Never.”

Pidge squinted. “You’re a shit liar.” 

“I’m not lying.” Keith said, picking Pidge’s glasses from their hands and attempting to put them on Pidge. 

“Oh my God Keith,” Pidge grabbed them back. “Useless,” they said, shaking their head. Their eyes were red but it wasn’t too bad. 

“How much trouble are you in for the distraction?” Keith asked, pulling the shirt out of Pidge’s hands and over his head. 

Pidge mused. “I won’t be breaking any lecture records. Shiro will probably chalk it up to emotional instability following a traumatic event.”

Keith nodded sagely. “Probably.” 

“You should start your planning now.”

“For what?”

“Keith.” Pidge sounded disappointed. “You have a free pass to do whatever you want for a week, minimum. If you’re suffering, you should at least make the most of it.” 

They spoke so matter of fact, so much like _Pidge_ Keith had to laugh. Pidge smacked him hard and everything was normal. Keith wondered if he could make it last. 

-

He couldn’t. 

Keith and sleep didn’t get along that night, or the next. If it showed as obviously as the black smudges below his eyes indicated, the others were determined to downplay it. Pidge dragged Keith from his room for meals while Shiro assigned all the paladins jobs. Despite Pidge’s prediction of a free pass Keith’s life was thrown into reverse. Shiro and Allura seemed convinced incorporating Keith into every aspect of Castle activities would somehow improve his health. 

Daily life was an unending checklist with the Adrath around. Coordinates provided dictated a point on the star map close enough not to warrant a wormhole jump. Traveling at sub light the trip was scheduled for a week and a half. In that time, Team Voltron was contending with a crew of 170. 

The Adrath were humanoid, adults a solid head taller than Shiro and children consistently shorter than Pidge. The height range wasn’t what made them interesting. 

They displayed the greatest collection of color Keith witnessed in one species. The scales covering their skin and the feathers adorning their arms and head were patterned in rainbow combinations Keith had never seen. The colors shifted when they walked, explosions in a firework factory. 

Given their ship was designed for deep space exploration, they were essentially self-sustaining for the necessities like food and rooms. Pidge, Hunk and Coran all threw themselves into starship repair as Allura and Shiro held long talks with scientists and commanders on their history of Galra rebellion.

Keith sort of assumed Lance would be as uninterested as him. The blue paladin suffered no such fate. The children flocked to him, fluttering for attention as he teased and taught silly games in the hangar. 

Keith wanted nothing to do with any of this. He wanted to go back to training or studying tactics. Hell, he’d take meditation for all the good it would do him to have others poking around in his head. On second thought, maybe not meditation. 

Instead he was dragged to the meetings, played assistant to the mechanics; a silent, tired bruise of a shadow forced to participate. Lance was the only one who didn’t insist on Keith’s “help”, shrugging off Keith’s stumbling objection with a “Don’t worry about it.” 

The limited time Keith had to himself were the hours in his room he spent not sleeping. More than anything, Keith wanted to move, to run and run until he collapsed. Since he could hardly stand for more than half an hour he doubted it would take long. 

On the third night of gazing at the uninspired ceiling, waiting on sleep at 3am, he compromised. Pulling on a hoodie – it was cozier than his jacket, he stole it from Shiro when it shrunk from an early attempt at laundry – Keith let his restless energy walk him around the ship. 

In the dark the Castle felt bigger. Keith couldn’t tell if it was his depth perception skewed or the low light but somehow he managed to turn himself around. A door he wouldn’t have noticed drew his attention. His head was aching again, not enough to worry Shiro with, but enough that Keith needed to sit down. Taking a break out of sight was vastly preferable to being caught sleeping in the hall. The door wasn’t locked, but the lights didn’t activate when he entered. 

Keith’s socked feet padded silently on the carpet. He paused when carpet changed to cool tile and looked down to glare at the offending floor in the dark. 

The floor was gone. Keith was suspended, held with pinpoint accuracy millions of miles between the stars. A dark and glittering expanse yawned beneath his feet. Keith didn’t want to think about how thick the glass must be to support his weight and hold out the airless vacuum the Castle traveled through. 

A view like that stole breath at gunpoint. Awe inspiring or petrifying and Keith felt more grounded held as a weightless speck above the cosmos than he had the past 3 days of walking around on flat dead ground. 

Behind Keith the door activated. He spun around like a kid caught with his hand in the cash register at 7/11. Dim light limited his view, but Keith never needed much to identifying this paladin. 

“Lance?” 

“Keith?” 

Lance paused at the edge of the glass. “What are you doing here?” He sounded more confused than accusatory.

“Uh,” Keith started eloquently, shuffling his feet. The room, not much larger than his sleeping quarters, was too small for both of them. 

“How’d you find this place?”

Keith’s stomach dropped to fall somewhere in the void. He was intruding, didn’t belong here above the stars. “I’m not sure. I’ll go.” He tucked his chin to his chest and shouldered past Lance. 

“Hey, wait–”

Lance’s reflexes had improved markedly since they started training months ago. This close Keith couldn’t avoid him. Lance’s hand closed around Keith’s forearm, twisting each boy to face the other. 

“You can stay,” Lance said, rushed. Keith could barely see Lance in the faint starlight. He wanted to say something, but Keith’s mind had snagged on the way Lance’s warm fingers were bunched in the material of his sweatshirt. 

“If you want.” Lance never could hold silence, handled a long pause like burning coals. 

Keith’s knee jerk reaction was to protest and flee the awkwardness he would doubtlessly inflict on the blue paladin. But Keith was tired, felt it between his bones, and that won out. Almost entirely. 

“If you, you don’t mind.” Keith died a little on the inside as he stuttered. Smooth. 

Lance snorted. “Do I mind, he asks. Hardly.” Lance seemed to realize he was still holding Keith’s hoodie and let go. “It’s a free Castle, Keith. We go where we want.”

“Feels more like a dictatorship.” Keith said offhand, surprising himself. “Shiro hasn’t been very diplomatic lately. I haven’t had a moment to myself in days.” 

“Oh I’ve noticed,” Lance said, eyes gleaming. “I haven’t been this unsupervised ever.”

“Lucky you.” 

“Yeah,” Lance said, “Lucky me.” 

It wasn’t quite a conversation, but it wasn’t an argument either. Keith didn’t know how to keep the ball rolling, faltering. By now Pidge or Hunk would have put in their two cents to drive the topic in a safe direction. Keith was traveling without a map into some uncharted territory where every step was one closer to fucking up and returning to the start. 

He didn’t know what he was waiting for, watched Lance with steadily increasing panic as the blue paladin watched him back. Fuck fuck fuck. Was it his turn to talk or something? Why was Lance being quiet? He was never quiet. 

Lance tilted his head to the side, like he was about to say something but thought better of it and moved past Keith to the transparent floor. Keith was still watching, waiting. Lance dropped to rest with his legs sprawled, weight leaned on his hands behind him. Sitting on starlight. 

Keith stood at the edge of the dark, glinting abyss. He felt like he was on the edge of a cliff, considering a jump that he knew was bottomless. That if he started falling, there was no end, only an infinitely expanding universe ready and greedy to swallow him whole. 

“You staying?” 

If Keith fell, he wasn’t alone. Lance was waiting.

Keith joined Lance, sitting cautiously, as if the surface that held for thousands of years might not hold him. Stars winked below them in unfamiliar constellations. Keith cast around for a safe topic. 

“How long have you known about this place?”

“Not that long actually,” Lance said, tapping his fingers on the slick glass. “Maybe a month?” 

“How did you find it?” 

“I may have been running away from Pidge,” Lance admitted with a laugh. It wasn’t his usual, room-filling laugh. This was a self deprecating little chuckle, a small thing for the small space they were sharing. 

“Was this after you idiotically reprogramed the commands for the new batch of missiles as ‘boom’, ‘bigger boom’ and ‘BOOM’?”

Lance gasped, affronted. “Idiotically? I was reflecting the real world in a user friendly format. Missiles 1 – 3 is a grade A snooze-fest.”

“You should be happy they fixed it before Allura noticed.”

“Happy is relative. Hunk thought it was funny.” 

“Pidge did too, afterwards.” Keith said. “But you might want to keep an eye on your Lion. Last I checked, they know a little more about code than you.” To be honest, Keith had been impressed when Lance pulled that particular prank. He forgot sometimes Garrison training was more than piloting skills alone. The coding classes certainly hadn’t stuck with Keith. 

“Eh, Pidge doesn’t scare me.” 

“They should.” Keith said. “I’ve never met anyone so small with so much concentrated rage.” 

Lance laughed again and something sparked in Keith. A senseless pinprick of satisfaction for making Lance laugh all by himself. 

“You forget, I trained with Pidge in Garrison,” Lance pointed out. “I have a few tricks to ensure survival. Deep down they love me.” 

The spark died. Of course. Keith should have remembered he was the outsider.

“Though I’ve never seen Pidge befriend anyone as fast as you,” Lance said, “to be honest you two have _Hunk and I_ ,” he emphasized, throwing Keith a teasing look that made some vital organ in Keith’s chest fail. “Worried. Your collective plotting has dark and horrifying potential.”

Keith shrugged, mind wrapped around the fact Lance thought about him outside of direct interactions like a car bent around a telephone pole. 

“What do you get up to outside of training?” 

“Uhh,” Keith suffered minor brain death. He couldn’t possibly admit to being the most boring and predictable human on the ship. “Just...training more.” Lance continued to look at him expectantly, not taking the easy bait Keith fumbled. “and books. Reading. Pidge is working on translating the Castle library.” Keith flushed, pressing his hands to the glass to keep from wringing them. No shit he read books. There wasn’t much you could do with books beside read them. What was he saying? 

“There’s a library?”

“Yeah,” Keith glanced over. Lance was just as relaxed as before. 

“That’s cool,” Lance said. “How does Altean literature compare to the earth variety?”

That was...oddly judgment free. Keith scrunched his nose, waved his hand in a seesaw motion. 

“That good?”

“They, they’re something.” 

Lance leaned forward. “Tell me. Start with the worst.” 

“Well,” Keith said, scratching at a scab. “Do you remember the weblums Coran told us about...?”

And just like that, they were talking. A real conversation, with full sentences and minor stuttering. They talked about the Altean tales, books they actually liked, what books they would have packed if they knew they were leaving earth for so long. Keith missed Jurassic Park like a limb, learned Lance had a penchant for fantasy and folklore. Fairy rings fed directly to conspiracy theories, they were neck deep in a debate on cryptids when Lance’s watch started beeping. 

“Shit,” Lance said. “I’m in charge of breakfast. Need to get there before Shiro does.” 

“Breakfast?” Keith frowned. They couldn’t have been talking that long.

“Yes. A meal traditionally served at the beginning of the day.”

“You don’t say,” Keith said dryly, mind running in circles. They talked all night? In the near dark of the room, it didn’t seem time was passing at all. A bubble of low entropy. “Is it really morning?” 

Lance nodded, yawning enormously. “Uggggg today is gonna suck. I miss real coffee.” 

Keith hummed his agreement and stretched. His sweatshirt rode up, cool air of the room hitting his stomach and making him shiver. He stood, tugging the material back down and noticed Lance was staring. 

“What?” 

“Nothing.” Lance muttered quickly. “I gotta go. See yah around.” He was out the door before Keith could say goodbye. 

Keith remained, rooted to the spot. The empty room was a hard slap back to reality. Lance was there and then not. Keith felt the inside of his ribcage gradually hollow out. How did he think the night would end? What did he expect? 

Missing sleep hit him as a direct throb from the bruises on the side of this face. Keith buried his aching head in his hands, throat unexpectedly tight. Fine. This was fine. He could get over this. 

A few seconds later Keith went into the hall and was nearly run over by Lance. 

“Hey!” Lance said, breathlessly. “Sorry, I...do you want to hang out again tonight?” 

Keith was agreeing before Lance finished. “Yeah, sure.” 

“Great!” Lance said, grin splitting his face. “I gotta run. See you tonight. Don’t get lost!”

The blue paladin was gone again, the sound of his footsteps fading as he rounded a corner. Keith remained for a solid 5 minutes. He couldn’t possibly go upstairs until he had control of the blush painting his cheeks or got the stupid smile off his face. 

-

Meeting in the star room became a nightly occurrence. Lance beat him there the second time, was pacing around when Keith showed. He sassed Keith for getting lost but the words didn’t match his expression. The second night was easier than the first, Keith didn’t feel like dying at every long pause in the conversation.

They talked about nothing and everything. Keith occasionally tripped up and revealed his embarrassing knowledge of Lance facts, but Lance didn’t hold it against him. If anything, he took it as a challenge to pull as much information out of Keith as he could to match what the red paladin knew about him. Five days passed in a weird blur of long days and short nights. 

The rest of the team dropped a few comments on Keith and Lance’s respective sluggishness and tirade of yawning, but Keith didn’t think anyone connected the dots. He hadn’t mentioned talking with Lance to Pidge. Keith wasn’t sure why. The nights seemed too unnatural, too fragile a thing to share. Like mentioning them would cheapen the experience and dress it with expectations.

The day before the Castle was set to arrive at Adrath, Allura summoned the paladins to the training deck. 

Keith arrived with Pidge, happy to take a break from restoring panels. The space junk had created many concave dents in his Lion which had to be pounded out in a very un-futuristic way. According to Coran fabricating new plates was a matter of last resort. Keith didn’t hate the work, but it was repetitive. Lance and Hunk were waiting when they showed, along with a rather startled looking Shiro. 

Allura was in the middle of the training room, surrounded by boxes large and small. Lance was eyeing the containers suspiciously; a smile quirked when he saw Keith. Keith stumbled on the threshold of the door. While Lance spent the majority of his time smiling, there was a grin – a little off center – he reserved for Keith since they started hanging out. 

Pidge nudged Keith once he recovered, indicating Shiro.

Rarely was Shiro caught off guard. Today he didn’t seem to be anymore clued in than the rest of them. 

"What's this about Princess?" 

Allura was wearing a pleased expression, the same conspiratorial smirk she wore around the mice. "I have something of a surprise for you paladins," she said, "A member of the Adrath crew is part of their Parliament. She was stationed on the voyage to learn more about the system, and if other worlds stood against the Galra." 

She smiled again and an uncertain dread filled Keith. He took an inadvertent step closer to Pidge. 

"Parliament hosts an event twice the Adrath year, in celebration of full twin moons. We will be arriving the day of and have been invited to attend as guests of honor."

She paused. 

"As representatives of Voltron, armor would be inappropriate for a social function. I had Coran complete an inventory of the Castle. I'm sure you can find something to your liking." 

Keith didn't like the sound of this, not one bit. Lance and Hunk, of fucking course, had already fallen upon the nearest box. 

Keith looked at Pidge. Pidge looked at Keith. They shrugged at the same time. 

"Might as well get this over with." 

"Hunk look!" Lance was already halfway buried in a chest. He clutched what looked suspiciously like a cape. 

Keith groaned, flipped open the nearest case. He disposed of several coats with wide sleeves and frightening coat tails, growing more concerned as he reached the bottom of his box. 

Several feet away Shiro had uncovered what might be military dress uniforms, thankfully with sets of plain black pants. Keith examined the Altean system of clothing tags blankly. Were they even numbers? 

“Pidge,” Allura called out, “what about this?” Keith peeked around a box to see the Princess draping something silver and trailing over her arm. 

Pidge was unimpressed. “Not on your life. Try Hunk.”

“Hunks good!” The yellow paladin shouted, “check this out!” A golden coat was brandished over his head, trimmed with black. “We should try and match our Lions!” 

“Dude, yes.” Lance had thankfully abandoned the cape, was holding a red belt. “Keith, catch!”

Keith snatched the belt out of the air. On closer examination, the belt was more maroon than red. Might work. He returned to a discard pile growing next to Pidge, belt slung over his shoulder. 

On earth, Keith hadn’t owned anything he couldn’t cram in a backpack. The sheer amount of stuff around him was, well, kind of exciting. He was having more fun than he cared to admit, gathering different outfits, picking and choosing. 

Coran joined them later, excitedly explaining original purposes of many outfits. He found the cape Lance waved around nearly half an hour ago. 

"The last time I wore this was at the Juniberry Festival, Allura wasn't even 14! Refused to dance with anyone other than her father."

"Coran." Allura chided. 

Shiro materialized from the changing room, adjusting the cuffs of a remarkably normal black collared shirt. "You dance?" 

"Yes, she's improved quite a bit!" Coran continued. "Talk of the evening on the night of her 25th!" 

Shiro paused helping Pidge with an olive bow tie. "Could we have a demonstration?" 

“Dance off!” Lance yelled from where he was comparing two identical blue ties. “Who has the tunes?” 

Keith sighed, loosening the laces on a pair of boots that were not working as Hunk and Lance began discussing music. 

Coran was more than happy to oblige, Allura relented only after Shiro asked again. 

She was in the same dress she always wore around the Castle, but Keith hadn't realized how far her skirt could whirl or how light both of the Alteans were on their feet. Without music, nothing but the tap of feet and Coran counting steps, it was still fascinating to watch. They spun around the training deck, using the entire space and avoiding piles of clothes with ease. 

"Wonder how long it takes to learn something like that?" Hunk said. "Looks hard." 

"I bet I could figure it out," Lance said. 

"Lance, what you call dancing the rest of us refer to as convulsing," Pidge said, not looking away from the dance. 

Shiro spoke over Lance's squawk of protest. "No... doesn't look too hard at all." 

Keith bit down on a smile. There were advantages to having known Shiro for a few years. 

Shiro cut in very politely, asking Coran if he could 'just try'. Allura was clearly amused, which made it harder for Keith not to smile. 

"Well this has potential to crash and burn." Lance said.

Keith shook his head. "Wait for it."

"Wait for what?" 

"Keith knows something." Pidge climbed on a chest for a better view. "I think maybe..." 

They didn't have to wait long at all. After a few, careful steps Shiro took the lead and started spinning Allura with the same dexterity Coran had. 

"Dude." Hunk said in disbelief.

"Shiro used to lead a dance class at the YMCA." Keith said. "I never went, but he seemed happy."

“This would be so much better with music,” Hunk sighed, snapping the suspenders he clipped on a while ago. He glanced sidelong at Pidge. “You thinking what I’m thinking?” 

“Three steps ahead of you,” Pidge said, digging around in the pockets of their discarded jacket. They pulled free a stubby black device that looked like a USB stick and ran after Hunk to the closest control panel. Keith watched, bemused. 

“Bet I can dance better than you,” Lance said, sidling over to him. The brunet was dressed in a dark blue suit jacket, bordering on black. He hadn’t found a tie yet, the top buttons of his grey shirt were undone to expose the lines of his collarbones. 

“Bet you can,” Keith agreed, mouth dry. He’d never been dancing in his life. 

“Come on, scaredy-cat,” Lance taunted. “I dare you.”

In the background, Keith could hear Allura laughing. A bright sound, melodic even, anything to distract from the way Lance was grinning at him. 

“Pretty sure there’s supposed to be music.” Keith said. 

Pidge chose that moment to cross the final wire. Music, barely in Keith’s peripheral started to crescendo. 

“You were saying?” Lance said, eyes sparkling. Keith groaned. 

-

“I can’t believe you made me do that.” Keith said, entering the star room and falling next to Lance on the dark expanse of galaxies. 

“I did nothing.” Lance protested. 

“Liar.” Keith said, pushing Lance over. The blue paladin bounced back as Keith settled next to him, bumping their shoulders on the rebound. Over the past week, Lance had been closing the distance between them. Friendly shoves, bumping knees and tonight Keith didn’t mind when Lance didn’t pull away. 

If Today Keith told told Last Week Keith he would be sitting next to Lance, arguing about who forced who into dancing, Last Week Keith would have admitted Today Keith to an asylum. Maybe none of this was even happening. Maybe he had died in the Neutron Star and stumbled into a not unpleasant afterlife.

An afterlife where Keith was unwillingly dragged into an impromptu dance lesson with Lance and the other paladins. Shiro tried to impose order at some point, but Pidge and Hunk monopolized the music, playing dumb when Voltron’s Leader requested any songs beside Beyoncé.

“Keith?” 

“Yeah?”

“You’re spacing out on me again.” Lance poked him in the side. 

“We are in space.”

Lance put a hand over his face. “Pidge is corrupting you.”

“Like you’re not an equally terrible influence.”

“Oh?”

Keith sighed, smiling despite himself. “Do you ever listen to yourself?” 

Lance shook his head. “Not really.”

“That explains a lot.” Keith said, teasing immediate and ingrained. Lance’s words stuck in his head though. The other boy spent so much time joking, it had taken all week for Keith to notice the bitter twist on Lance’s words when his barbs weren’t directed at other people. 

“Where did you learn to dance?” Keith asked, curious. Lance hadn’t been half as bad as Pidge predicted. 

Lance perked up again, pleased. “My sisters.” Any trace of a dark mood was scrubbed so clean Keith had to wonder if he was imagining things. 

“Was that before or after winging eyeliner?” Keith said. Three days ago Lance had bragged about his impressive knowledge of make-up beyond his skin care routine. Keith wasn’t about to let him forget it. 

“You’re so just jealous.” Lance said, elbowing him. Keith ached, but not from the jab. He was jealous. Lance’s family life was such a foreign concept to him. Lance poked him again. 

“You weren’t so bad yourself.” 

“Oh fuck off,” Keith said, face heating up at the memory. He’d evaded Lance for a few songs, then experienced forced participation when Hunk literally lifted Keith off the ground and swung him around. Following that Keith shuffled around with Pidge, and grudgingly let Lance lead him around for a song, stumbling and laughing as Lance belted out Chandelier. 

“Well I had a good time.” Lance said, sounding a little put out. 

“Didn’t say it wasn’t good,” Keith muttered. 

“What’s that?” Lance’s neck swiveled, eyebrows jumping. “Didn’t quite catch what you said there.”

Keith turned to meet Lance’s eyes. With their shoulders pressed together less than 6 inches separated his nose from Lance’s. This close, despite the shadows, Keith could count the freckles dusting Lance’s cheeks and the bridge of his nose. 

“Because it almost sounded,” Lance said, significantly quieter, “like you said you were having a good time. With me.” 

There was a feeling, a tension to the air Keith couldn’t explain. Lance was looking at him; a look Keith recognized from others but didn’t want to. He saw it coming from miles away, had several heartbeats to say something. He just didn’t know what. 

Keith wanted to want this, running scenario after possibility where he found enough strength not to ruin things and dealt with the sick feeling in his gut as Lance leaned forward, soft look in his eyes. Keith was too busy thinking to pull back when Lance’s lips met his.

It wasn't anything special or too forward. Just the dry press of lips. 

That was all it took, all it ever took. The moment the kiss started Keith wanted it to end. Nothing had changed, Keith was still himself. Somebody who wasn’t enough for Lance.

Keith was on his feet and gone without so much as a sorry, sorry for being unlovable, sorry for leading Lance on. Lance shouted after him but it was too late. All Keith knew was he had to find someplace Lance wouldn't search him out, and fast. His room: out of the question. Training deck: too obvious. Bridge: he couldn’t risk running into Shiro like this. 

His chest was burning from a disorienting combination of panic and jogging as his vision jittered at the edges. The Red Lion Hangar hadn't been high on his list, but it wasn't a long list. Keith didn't expect anyone else to be awake. He might have jumped from his skin when Hunk called out a greeting if he wasn't on the verge of passing out. 

"Keith! Come to check on your lady? Don't worry man, Red is– hey, are you okay?"

Hunk hurried over, caught Keith's forearms. Keith knew how bad panic attacks looked on the outside. He could hear the breaths he wasn't taking, feel his body trembling apart. In public people passing would have offered to call the paramedics. 

Keith could just hear Hunk over the blood rushing in his ears. 

"Need me to get Shiro?"

Keith shook his head violently, forcing words between gasps. 

"No... just...p-panic...attack..."

Hunk made a sympathetic sound.

"Shoot that sucks. Here, you shouldn't be standing." 

Hunk placed Keith by the Red Lion, adjacent to a set of tools ordered from smallest to largest. 

"Head between your legs man." 

Keith didn't have to be told twice. 

"Look if you want to give it some time, I trust you. But if you pass out I'm getting Shiro. You were pretty banged up last week."

"That's...fair..."

"Is it cool if I keep working?"

"...please." 

Hunk either had an uncanny sixth sense or witnessed panic attacks in the past. Fussing rarely helped Keith, made him feel like a charity case, pitied. Hunk simply returned to his work, explaining various components. He reminded Keith of Pidge when they were in the middle of a project. 

Listening helped shut out the sharp pain of what he did, black scabs forming for him to pick at later. Hunk never strayed out of eyesight, orbiting Keith's corner while he tinkered and chatted. 

Keith would have stayed there all night, curled in a protective ball of dead limbs, but Hunk, careful honest Hunk wasn’t having it. He threatened to wait until Keith fell asleep and carry him to his room. 

"Red will still be here when you wake up man. We all will." 

Keith scrubbed a hand over his face to smudge the tear tracks. 

"Look, I don't know exactly what's happening in your brain, but I can tell you this much. After everything you went through this is perfectly normal. You'll be okay."

Hunk comfort was worlds away from Pidge comfort. Keith found he didn't mind. He could almost believe the yellow paladin, in spite of every effort he was spending erasing blue eyes and soft lips from his mind, nothing but in and out counts of breathing. 

(When Keith woke up the next morning with no memory of the walk back from the Hangar, he tried not to overthink it.)

-

Keith tugged on his tie, frowning as he stepped out of the shuttlecraft behind Allura. Pidge was glued to his side as the three of them approached the Event Hall, walking along a wide gravel path. The suns had set hours ago – light from the Event Hall’s grand windows illuminated the trail from the gardens. Shiro, Lance and Hunk landed earlier; Coran had been planetside since early morning. 

Staggering an entrance by groups of three was the singular blessing on Keith’s shit morning. One convenient window to continue his evasion of Lance. With all of the bustle in the Castle as the Adrath prepared Keith and Lance’s aggressive avoidance had passed largely unnoticed by the others. Pidge shot Keith a raised eyebrow as he left breakfast when Lance arrived, but asked no questions. 

“Kindly remember paladins,” Allura said as they neared a set of double doors as tall as the Black Lion. “You are representatives of Voltron, Legendary Defenders of peace in the galaxy. The Adrath have faced conflict with Galra and now endeavor to remain a neutral party. We need them to reconsider. Please maintain a level of decorum.” 

Keith and Pidge agreed quickly. Shiro and Coran had separately imparted the same information with similar intensity. They were well briefed on the situation and Keith couldn’t find it in him to care less. By the look of it, the venue was enormous. He distractedly hoped there was enough space for him to keep far away from Lance. 

They made eye contact once the whole day, over breakfast. Keith was ready for confusion, maybe frustration. The look Lance shot him was unmistakable anger. Keith had ducked out to prevent any possibility of conversation. He didn’t want any of disappointment or annoyance or disgust in Lance’s expression to form into words. He couldn’t handle that. 

The Event Hall entrance hummed as vines encircling the frame glowed. A smaller set of inlaid doors swung open, revealing the Ballroom. They entered together. Keith was blinded for a moment, blinked as light coalesced and reformed to reveal the yawning expanse of the Ballroom.

While Keith considered the suits a bit much, he and the other paladins could be counted among the less-well-dressed. Extravagance, it would seem, was universal. Opulent architecture competed with the guests for notice. The Adrath people already possessed a natural glow, intensified as their scales reflected the blue flames of candles and multifaceted glasses. 

Keith knew his mouth was open, he shut it with a click. Everything in the Ballroom was as grand as it was fragile. Spun glass was whirling to imitate vines around every available surface, choking pillars and handrails alike. 

“Shit.” Pidge summed up Keith’s thoughts concisely. Allura stepped on their foot with a quiet “ _Representatives_.”

Keith wouldn’t have minded entering the Ballroom, despite being very exposed on the staircase, if an announcement over the speaker hadn’t boomed their arrival. Conversations stalled as guests across the room paused to investigate the new attendees. 

Allura handled the attention beautifully, tipping her head in acknowledgement of the crowd as applause kicked up. Pidge waved and Keith did his best to hide behind them. Or evaporate. Either would be preferable to facing down the room full of expectant Adrath.

They descended the staircase as the applause slowed. Keith diverted all his energy to not tripping on the steps, which were designed for taller Adrath physiology. The journey was too long and not long enough. Fear of falling met Keith’s fear of the awaiting crowd and they hit it off. Keith glanced at Pidge more than once for support, but the green paladin’s eyes were a touch too wide behind their glasses as the three of them were accosted on the bottom step. 

Allura was in her element. Keith forgot, between her strategizing and piloting the Castle, Allura was Altean royalty. They called her Princess, but the title rarely brought to mind more than a blurry Star Wars reference. She had adjusted her height for the event as well, was eye level with the Adrath who flocked to her.

Keith clung to Pidge’s suit jacket like it was something to lose. Their dark jacket fit the best, one button over a white shirt. They insisted the green bowtie was festive enough, but Coran had snuck color corresponding pocket squares on all of their outfits. 

Keith was proud of his outfit yesterday. He’d been secretly pleased gathering red accents for the dark clothes; the belt, the tie, he found a blood red drop of an earring he stabbed through the partially closed cartilage of an old piercing. The face in the mirror had resembled something like a person yesterday – not somebody Keith knew very well, but a person. 

Here between these bright, prismatic figures Keith felt more like a dirty handprint on a clean window. 

“You must be the Red Paladin.” 

Keith realized Allura had glided away. The Adrath addressing him was four shades of pink and orange. Pidge could have looked them in the eye if they stood on Keith’s shoulders. 

“Yup, that’s Keith,” Pidge said, pinching his arm. 

“I am Naalika. I represent off world relations between our people and the neighboring systems. An ambassador.” Pidge and Keith where clearly meant to be impressed. 

Keith frowned, resisting the need to cross his arms by adjusting his jacket. “What neighboring systems? The Galra–”

“Are an absolutely terrible threat,” Pidge said. “That must make your job very interesting. How long have you been working as an ambassador? The job sounds fascinating.”

Naalika preened at the praise, feathers fluttering. “Too long to count. My predecessor stepped down in quite the scandal.”

“That’s exciting” Pidge said. Keith wondered if Adrath knew about sarcasm. “Tell me more.”

As Naalika recounted a series of affairs, Keith let his eyes wander. No sign of the other paladins yet, though Keith was pretty sure he heard a Shiro laugh. Keith was too visible at the bottom of the stairs; he needed a dark corner or one of the twisting pillars to hide behind. Keith edged away from Pidge’s painfully feigned interest. 

Naalika called after him. “Red Paladin, there is another matter. I have friends invited conditionally to meet you.” 

Keith returned grudgingly.

“Won’t take a moment,” Naalika said. They opened their mouth wide, revealing a row of distractingly sharp teeth and a slick trilling sound, if a hiss swallowed a bird call, poured out. A series of calls were returned as the guests around them carried on, unbothered. 

Moments later eight or nine Adrath children came winding through the crowd. They targeted Keith like small, feathery, heat seeking missiles, skidding close and clamoring around him. Keith might have recognized a few from the time they spent on the ship, but he had largely avoided the Adrath crew during the past week. It was at a time like this he knew he was right to do so. 

They were thanking him, hugging him, squeaking at him. Pidge was lost in the crush of Adrath as nearby attendees noticed the commotion and paid their thanks as well. A child barely knee height shoved a hand drawn picture in his hand while someone in a uniform was snapping photos. 

Keith would be the first to admit, he panicked. Not the flustered, red faced panic Lance – and wow, did he not want to think about Lance seeing him like this – could reduce him to. The silent, unmoving panic that shut off emotions and strained facial expressions. He just didn’t care. They were treating him like he was special, congratulating him for a job he hadn’t done right. He had scared his team, put Lance at risk and these twittering Adrath were building a pedestal Keith wanted off of. 

The onslaught of thanks died down when a bell rang over the intercom, signaling a mass exodus of the main floor. Chords were struck, harmonized from the band stationed on a balcony. The children trilled about the upcoming dance. Keith fucking legged it to the door he tagged as his last chance for survival. 

A knee high rope was slung across a curtained doorway at the back of the ballroom. Keith couldn't read the silvery placard but figured he could tell a bar when he saw one. Contrary to Lance's belief, he watched some TV. Foster dad #6 hadn't changed the password for his Netflix account in years.

Keith was fully prepared to play the 'We saved your galaxy and your people’ card to gain entrance, but he didn't have to. The Adrath by the rope ushered him inside and Keith passed with a quiet thanks. 

The bar was a bit anticlimactic. Adrath milled about in the half dark, pockets of conversation gathered underneath smaller versions of the ballroom chandeliers. The vine theme was subtler here. Keith absently traced a trail of leaves carved in the counter as he pretended to read the menu. Adrath symbols reminded him of the clumsier version stuffed in his pocket on the terrible drawing of a lion. 

Nope. Not what he was here to think about. 

Keith had found a mostly full bottle of fireball when he moved into the house in the desert. Maybe ‘moved in’ was the wrong phrase. It implied Keith came with more than a backpack and had the legal right to be there as opposed to what it was: a runaway teenager with a stolen hoverbike.

The bottle had been cracked and dusty, but Keith's curiosity won out a few months in. He drank it all in the space of half an hour following a typical day of coffee for breakfast, mystery can for lunch and forgetting dinner. 

Pleasantly unsteady turned to spinning turned to vomiting and Keith hadn't wanted anything more to do with alcohol until now. 

When the bartender stopped Keith pointed at random on the list. Seconds later a stocky tumbler half full of sparkling blue liquid was in front of him. He took the tiniest sip, remembering the fireball. 

The undercurrent of whatever passed for Adrath liquor was definitely present on Keith's untrained tongue, but didn't burn his throat. It went down smooth, if he was told he had to pick a word associated with drinking, but it was only smooth in comparison to what he drank in the past. 

Keith had another sip. Wasn't bad. Wasn't good. The syrupy aftertaste was leaving a film in his mouth. Keith was about to hunt for a booth to hide in when the curtain blocking the ballroom entrance was pushed open. 

The Adrath were humanoid, but not enough for Keith to mistake the newcomer for anyone other than Lance. Hell, didn’t matter where he was, Keith was pretty sure he could spot Lance in a crowd. 

Fuck.  

Lance in a suit was simply unfair. When they danced around the ship yesterday, Keith was too busy with his own wardrobe choices to follow what Lance put together. The blue paladin had kept the blue bordering on black jacket, in the dark there was a silvery sheen over the material. With the dark coat, the light grey shirt underneath did wonders for the navy tie. Keith could look at him all day, if he hadn’t fucked everything up last night he might have allowed himself more than a peek. 

Lance was doing the same thing Keith had when he walked in, glancing around to get the lay of the land. Keith turned before Lances gaze wandered to him, hands fiddling with the tumbler. He stared at his drink and waged a brief mental war. The victor, Impulsivity of House Avoidance and Denial claimed the throne and Keith drained the glass in a series of uncomfortable gulps. 

It wasn't pleasant, but it was efficient. The straw he ignored was maybe there for a reason, because something alien to Keith’s taste buds had settled in the bottom of the glass. Keith clamped down his gag reflex and hunched over the bar to make himself smaller. 

Lance stood at the other end of the bar as the bartender refilled Keith’s glass over his short protest. Keith didn’t dare look, listening intently as Lance started a conversation. Keith couldn’t distinguish the topic, but he did know what Lance sounded like when he was flirting. 

Keith grit his teeth. Lance was entitled to act however he wanted and if Keith didn’t like it, well, that was his own fault. Whatever cautious hope Keith let into his life in the last week was cursed with the same logical fate someone like him should have prepared for. He wasn’t wrong, Keith told the bartender, just different. 

“Not his fault I’m like this,” Keith continued, tapping the counter next to his still full glass. “Doesn’t mean I can’t...” he searched for the term, his brain fuzzy. “I dunno, somethin’.” 

The bartender remained silent, round red eyes unblinking. 

“Why don’t people ask?” Keith said. The impatience boiling under his disappointment started to leak between the cracks. “Very simple question. Is it movies? Movies make it look obvious. Or do other people just know?”

Lance’s laugh carried from down the bar. Sounded forced to Keith, almost mechanical. 

“That’s not how he’s supposed to laugh,” Keith needed to educate the silent Adrath. Lance deserved to be understood. Lance had a wide variety of laughter, all of them stored in a fucking library in Keith’s brain. This was a new one to add, and Keith couldn’t say he was happy about it. He was in the middle of explaining this when a hand grabbed his arm. Felt nice. 

“Keith. There you are. Shiro’s been looking for you and–”

“Pidge!” Keith declared loudly as the green paladin swum into focus. “Pidge, Pidge I have to tell you I...” Keith trailed off. “I forget.” 

“Oh my God,” Pidge looked very startled for someone attending a party. “Keith are you drunk?” 

Keith considered his options as Pidge’s face grew more incredulous. “Um,” Keith stalled. “Define drunk.”

Pidge picked up the full glass in front of Keith, sniffed it, and took the daintiest sip. “How many of these have you had?” 

“One,” Keith said, leaning into the bar. 

“I sincerely doubt that.” 

“It’s true,” Keith whined. “I didn’t even like it. Taste is gross.” 

“That’s really not relevant right now,” Pidge said, pinching the bridge of their nose. “Do you have any clue what Shiro is going to do to you if–” 

“You’re not relevant.” The comeback was far too late, but Keith was satisfied with himself all the same. 

“Keith Kogane you are going to fucking owe me,” Pidge said. “Please tell me Lance didn’t follow you here.” 

“Pidge, I have a bit of a problem.” Hunk had saddled up beside them. The yellow paladin was holding Lance, controlling the other boy as he protested. 

“Hunk it was one drink you can’t interrupt a guy in the middle of a conversation.”

Keith snorted. “What conversation? The kind where you talk at other people?” 

Lance opened his mouth when Hunk slapped his hand over the blue paladin’s mouth. Keith smirked but couldn’t hold it, thinking about Lance’s lips under Hunk’s hand.

The hurried conversation between Pidge and Hunk was faster than Keith could follow. Instead, Keith puzzled over the weightless feeling in his head when he turned it too fast. Sort of like floating but with his feet on the ground. Then Pidge was grabbing his arm, yanking him toward the door none to gently. 

Back in the Ballroom it was bright and loud and Keith wasn’t a fan. Keith tried to pull back but Pidge didn’t allow it. 

“You’re very strong,” Keith said, staggering behind. “Pidge, how did you get so strong?” 

Pidge placed Keith against a pillar, holding him in place. It was a great spot, near the exit and inconspicuous with the crowd distracted by the dancing. 

“Keith, I’m saying this once and if you value your life you are going to listen.” Pidge said sternly. They were rarely this stern, so Keith tried to listen. To the side, Hunk appeared to be having a similarly serious conversation with Lance. “Keith.”

“Yes.” Keith said, blinking rapidly. Listening to Pidge. He could do this. 

“The Ambassador invited us to spend the night at the Hotel Belahan so we don’t have to go back to the Castle before the award ceremony tomorrow.”

Award Ceremony. Keith didn’t want to go to an Award Ceremony. “Do we have to?”

Pidge closed their eyes, possibly counted to ten, then fixed Keith with a glare that could melt crystal. “This is your one and only chance to prevent Shiro from locking you and Lance in the Castle until the end of time and you are going to take it. You stand here, you wave when I point at you and you pray Shiro is too busy dancing with Allura to come over and talk to you before we leave. Understand?” 

Keith sighed. Lance’s increasingly animated argument with Hunk was far more interesting. Pidge jabbed him. 

“Understand?” 

“Okay, okay,” Keith said. “Wave when you point, Shiro is too in love with Allura to pay attention so everything is fineeeee”.

“Close,” Pidge said. They fixed Keith’s crooked jacket. Keith squirmed but let them finish. “Now stay.” 

“Pidge?”

The green paladin paused, shoulders stiff. “Yes Keith?” 

“You’re a really good friend. And pilot. And other stuff.” 

Pidge’s expression was pained. “I know. Now stand here and don’t mess this up.” 

“Kaaaaay.” 

Keith stood there, straight backed as Pidge weaved toward Shiro. Lance was apparently deemed a flight risk since Hunk remained, tethering Lance as if he were a kite on a windy day. 

By the end of it, Keith believed he performed his role admirably. Pidge talked and talked with Shiro and when Voltron’s leader looked Keith’s way, Keith waved and flashed a big smile. He liked Shiro. If he could pick a brother, Shiro would be first. Keith liked the idea of having a brother. Lance said it wasn’t so good all the time, but then again, Lance bragged about his brothers all the time. Keith would have liked to ask Lance for clarification but he remembered they weren’t talking for some reason. 

All of this rattled around Keith’s head as Pidge and Hunk directed and dragged Lance and him first from the party to a long red car where Lance played with the window, then across a hotel lobby decorated like the Ballroom. 

Plagiarism, Keith condemned as he staggered out of the elevator. People got in real trouble for that. Pidge slammed a key into the lock of a wide gold and silver door, pushed Keith inside and finally released the iron grip they had on Keith.

“Oh thank God.” Hunk said, ignoring Lance’s complaints. “We did it. I think that took actual years off my life.” He high-fived Pidge wearily.

“S’what you get for trying to pull people's arms off, Chewie.” Lance grumbled, rubbing his shoulder. 

“Remind me why we did this?” Pidge said from behind as Keith stumbled further into the room. 

“Right now I honestly couldn’t tell you,” Hunk said. “Whoa. Neat.” 

Keith agreed. The room was neat. A large oval chamber with more glass plant life curling around the lamps and a corner bar. Translucent hues skipped and blurred for a moment over Keith’s vision. He squinted. An expansive window served as the wall overlooking the city. There wasn’t any furniture, but a wide section of the floor had been scooped away by the window and was filled with oddly shaped pillows. 

It reminded Keith of the ball pits at McDonalds and shit if that hadn’t been the highlight of his fucked up childhood. Keith threw himself in without consideration. The cushions were squishy and comfy, but Keith had to unbury his head when the room spun fast. Better to have his eyes open. 

Pidge joined him, shoving a glass bottle of water in Keith’s uncoordinated hands.

“You’ll thank me later.” 

“I can thank you now,” Keith pointed out, holding still as Pidge unknotted his tie, grumbling about Keith strangling himself in his sleep.

“I’ll wait.” Pidge said, unraveling the band around Keith’s neck. “Because it is going to be the most comprehensive and detailed apology of your life. Depending on the quality I may or may not enslave you as a personal assistant until one of us dies.”

“Please don’t die,” Keith said, worry collecting like rain. “Pidge you can’t die. I need you.” 

“Nobody is dying,” Pidge said, tossing the tie out of reach.

“But you said–” 

“Keith. That’s not– oh my God.” Pidge actually grabbed a handful of their hair. “I can’t. I love you, but I cannot talk to you right now. Here, have Hunk.” They scooted away, trading places with Hunk as Keith rolled their words around. 

“And how are you feeling?” Hunk asked, settling next to Keith. Hunk was definitely more amused than Pidge by this turn of events now that they were safely in the hotel room. 

“Pidge loves me,” Keith said. He wasn’t so sure about this revelation. 

“Yeah man,” Hunk said, smiling. “Me too. Maybe drink some of that water, okay?” 

Keith scowled, glaring at the bottle as if it had personally offended him. Hunk noticed.

“What’s wrong?”

“People don’t, don’t say stuff like that,” Keith said finally. “Not to me. I’m not lovable.” 

“Aww Keith.” Hunk leaned over, shook Keith’s shoulder. “That’s not true. You’re very lovable.” Hunk sounded too much like he was teasing. It was frustrating. 

“I’m not. I try, but I’m not,” Keith insisted. His stomach twisted, heart climbing up his throat. “I can’t be.”

“Why do you say that?” 

“I’m ace,” Keith said, putting so much emphasis into the word he almost landed on Hunk. It was very important Hunk understand him, now of all times. He wasn’t sure why. Hunk had been there for him last night. They were friends now. “Which means–” 

“Nuh, Nuh Nuh, I know,” Hunk steamrollered Keith, flattening him. “Believe me, I know.”

“You know.”

“Well, I didn’t know about you,” Hunk corrected, “but I know all about ace. It does not make you unlovable. Lance’s sister is ace. Evelyn.”

Keith ran the name through his Lance database. Evelyn. Second oldest. Worked at an elementary school. Lance’s unofficial favorite when he was mad at Joseph.

“Isn’t Evelyn married?” 

“Yeah!” Hunk gave his sunshine smile, the kind that hurt Keith’s heart. “He’s a super cool dude.” 

Keith’s filter had filed for divorce back at the party, collected the dog and left the planet by now. “How?”

“They make it work. The poor guy survived a Lance interrogation, you have to give him props.”

“Interrogation?” Keith rolled for a better view of Hunk, fighting with a few foamy pillows until he could put his face in his hands. 

“Evelyn had a hard time dating in high school. I mean, I don’t have to tell you man. You get it.”

“Yeah.” The ugly swirl of a past relationship tugged for Keith’s attention. Keith gave it the mental equivalent of a rude gesture and returned to Hunk. “What did Lance do?”

“Well, she’s what, six years older?”

“Five. She’s 23.” 

Hunk eyed him. “Sure. Five.”

“And?”

“And Lance, you know, wanted to protect her. From people who have the wrong idea about her being ace. Saying she’s confused, she needs to find the right guy, blah blah blah. He tracked down the first guy who dumped her when he was 12 and got kicked out of a McDonalds.” 

Keith let out the laugh bubbling in his chest, nearly spilling the water. His head was spinning, for once not in the bad way. Lance’s sister was ace? Lance knew what asexuality meant and defended her? 

Fuck, Pidge had been right. He should have talked to Lance. 

Hunk was chuckling too. “Man, he’s been banned from the same McDonalds at least four times.”

“Lance? This Lance?” Keith lost control of another giggle, “Nooooo!” 

Keith couldn’t remember feeling this happy in a long time. All the worry and guilt over last night was falling, pictures knocked off walls. Maybe Keith couldn’t fix everything, but he had a chance. Everything was bright and tilting and he needed to talk to Lance. 

“What are you two laughing about?” 

Speaking of Lance. 

“Lance!” Keith pushed to his knees, swaying so he could look over Hunk. Pidge was flopped behind Hunk, using him as a backrest. Just past Pidge, Lance was resting at the edge of their pillow pit. At some point he lost his suit jacket, his shirt was rumpled and the sleeves had been rolled up. Lance held his own bottle of water between a few loose fingers. 

Keith watched the bottle swing back and forth. Lance had very long fingers. Graceful, even. There was something he was supposed to be doing. 

“What?” Lance said harshly, louder than necessary. 

“Evelyn!” Keith replied happily. The confidence was there, eloquence not so much. 

“I was telling Keith about the first time you were kicked out of McDonalds-” Hunk said, but Keith was pretty sure he could get the point across faster. 

“Your sister is a-sex-ual.” Keith said with utter gravity. This was a serious matter. “And married!” 

“Yes, Evelyn is asexual and married, what’s it to you?”

“That like, never happens.” Keith said. 

“Being ace doesn’t mean you can’t get married or have meaningful long term relationships Keith.”

Hunk attempted to head Lance off. “Lance, Keith wasn’t–”

“I don’t want to hear excuses!” Lance said, sitting up, catching Pidge’s shoulder to steady himself as he swayed. “I think maybe Keith shouldn’t be talking about relationships.” He hit the last word a vengeance. 

Keith put a hand out to slow the sound coming from Lance. It didn’t work. Lance was on a roll. 

“He especially shouldn’t be judging long-term asexual relationships, which he clearly hasn’t heard of, that are based entirely on communication and trust and are a beautiful thing.”

Lance stopped to take a long swig from his bottle and for a second Keith thought he was done. Lance wasn’t.

“Sexual orientation isn’t the sort of thing that gets in the way of people who understand each other and want to make things work. And who even knows what their orientation is? Shit. It shouldn’t be a big deal. It isn’t.” 

Lance became less eloquent the longer he rambled, cheeks pink. 

"I might be a little greyscale. I don't fucking know? We're not fuckin’ even 20. Not that age matters. All this shit is fluid as fuck, you shouldn't put people in boxes, Keith. Love is love."

"Lance you absolute flaming trash can," Pidge hiccupped and rolled their eyes with enough force to make Keith proud. "Keith is ace. He knows."

Watching Lance process what Pidge said was a wonder to behold. Keith could see gears turning, hamster wheels spinning into turbo drive. Keith was grinning so hard his face hurt. The whole day of avoiding Lance was useless, obsolete. Lance might actually understand Keith in a way very few others did. 

While Lance stared, Keith worked out he was having the best moment of his life. If nothing else Lance didn't hate Keith for something beyond his control. Lance defended asexuality and Lance didn’t think something was wrong with people like him. And that was great. Nothing else mattered right now. 

This should have been the sign his Adrath drink hadn’t been alcohol, had to be something more to have wrangled Keith's anxiety into a manageable bundle he could gleefully tell to fuck off.

Lance didn't seem to be firing on all synapses either, his mouth forming a comical little 'o'. Keith laughed, a wheezing sound that set Pidge off. 

"Oh shit," Lance said faintly. "Keith." Lance finally met Keith’s eyes, cheeks flaming. "Last night, I didn't mean– I didn’t even ask..."

Lance looked mortified, and that wouldn't do. Keith needed to be closer. He climbed over Hunk and Pidge with the grace of an inconvenienced cat, stepping all over both of them. There were minor protests, but between catching Hunk mid-yawn and Pidge’s incessant giggles the other two paladins didn’t create remarkable resistance. 

Keith landed more or less on top of Lance, who scrambled to create a gap between them. Keith grabbed a handful of Lance's shirt as he wormed away, halting his retreat. 

"Uh." Lance held perfectly still, eyes flicking between Keith's face and the hand Keith was twisting in his shirt. "Is this...okay?" 

Keith waited a moment for the room to slow its spinning and smiled. "Yeah." With a huff, Keith flailed and found a better position, with his head on Lance's chest, one arm sunk in the pillows, the other wrapped around Lance. "This is nice."

A stray thought drifted past, like a bubble on a string. Keith peeled open his eyes, setting his chin on Lance’s sternum. 

“Your eyes are stupid blue.”

It wasn’t what Keith had been thinking, but it was true.

Lance’s face flushed, if possible, a darker shade of red. “Th-thanks...”

The thought returned. “Lance?” 

“Yeah?”

“Is this okay with you?”

Lance let out a breathy little laugh, ribs bouncing under Keith. “Yeah, Keith. This is more than okay.”

Keith hummed happily, forehead dropping back to Lance’s chest. The other boy was warm, unconscionably so. Keith nuzzled closer, surrounding himself with nothing but Lance to shut up the distant screaming. He would panic later. Right now he had everything he wanted and Lance wanted it too and that was okay.

-

Keith was halfway to sleep, practically purring as Lance’s fingers carded through his hair when they were ambushed. The paladins had quieted considerably in the last half hour, Pidge and Hunk's conversation fading to a background murmur as Keith dozed. Keith was idly counting Lance’s heartbeats as they synchronized with his. The very possibility of a trap had never crossed his mind. 

The window shattered at the same time the door was blasted from its hinges. The wrongness of the crash jarred Keith off Lance and he struggled to stand as the room tilted. Blurry shapes sharpened to figures in dark masks, blurred again. The one nearest Keith snapped their wrist, unfolding a baton the length of Keith’s forearm. Orange energy buzzed on the far end as they charged, swinging at Keith. 

“Keith!” 

Keith’s brain wasn’t responding so well, but all the hours stacked on hours in the training simulator weren’t a total loss. Muscle memory kicked in and he dodged the first swipe. Keith’s stance was awful, he followed through sloppily to catch his assailant’s wrist. The buzzing baton was loud in his ear, radiating cold as Keith fought to break their grip. Over the charged hum, Keith could hear the others struggling. 

A kick to the back of his knee dropped Keith to the floor. He rolled, narrowly avoiding another swing. Everything was too fast, Keith was too slow. On his left Keith saw Hunk catch one of the charged batons in the neck, body convulsing. Pidge was wielding a bottle from behind the bar, threw it with impressive force. 

Keith missed what happened next as he scrambled, pivoting his back to the wall, facing two attackers. Glass crunched under Keith’s socked feet as he backed away, digging claws into his heels. 

“Get away from him!”

Lance had taken a hint from Pidge, bringing down a heavy bottle on the head of one intruder cornering Keith. Keith rushed the other, pushed off the blades of glass shredding his feet. The toppled over together, knocking air from Keith’s lungs. He gasped, grappling for the baton. Crackling electricity hovered between them as they fought. 

Pidge was yelling. With strength born entirely of desperation, Keith forced the baton into the other figures chest. They seized as Keith struggled to stand, socks slick with blood. 

Keith was on his feet in time to see Lance get kicked in the chest. 

Time did that weird thing that happened in nightmares, the moments directors tried to replicate in movies with slow motion. Noise was blurring, Keith was moving, shouting, but he was too late. 

Lance stumbled back, ankle catching on the lip of the shattered window. He fell out the 6th story room without a sound. 

“LANCE”

Keith had one throat tearing scream before he was hit from behind. His muscles locked, he couldn’t move, could hardly breathe, couldn’t even do that when a boot connected with his stomach. A bag was crammed over his head, cinched tight around his neck. He heard another thump, likely Pidge as the sound of conflict halted. 

“Fool! The bounty states all four paladins.”

“Naalika will have to be content with three. Bring them.”

Panic, frantic unending panic flooded Keith, but he was helpless to do anything more than struggle weakly as he was dragged from the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...that happened. (trust the tags its not that kind of fic) I’ve wandered away from the 5 + 1 prompt and any reasonable word count. we don’t make the rules we break them. blame sarah. 
> 
> the idea behind the boys dressing up came from art I stumbled over on tumblr. This fic turned out a little different, but I really like the work by raphodraws: http://raphodraws.tumblr.com/post/155113952592/suit-up-boys-and-pidge
> 
> dancing art is out there too. I was inspired and now I cant find it D: remember the dancing? That was fun, right? 
> 
> Update...soon. pls don’t hate me. They are my children too.


	4. Basement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well this got incredibly dark incredibly fast. 
> 
> when I get in trouble with the authorities for ‘distraction prison break’ and ‘blood loss/electrocution effects’ in my search history it is on you fools. 
> 
> *check the bottom notes for warnings if you a lil squeamish

“Where is the Castle of Lions?” 

The Adrath didn’t wait for a response as Keith panted, swinging a length of rebar into Keith’s chest almost casually. Keith screamed when the metal bar connected, cracked rib splintering. He tried to curl in on himself but the restraints only dug deeper in his wrists. It was no use. 

Keith slumped again, his toes barely brushing the ground as he stretched to relieve weight from his aching shoulders. The metal handcuffs were hooked to a length of chain hanging from the ceiling, one of many dangling at irregular intervals. The barebones skeleton of a partially constructed building stretched around him. Figures moved between gaps in unfinished walls, casting shadows on the shifting orange and black Adrath looming over him. 

“What energy source powers the Castle?”

Keith didn’t raise his head, gritting his teeth for the next blow. 

“Answer or face death.” 

“Do it,” Keith growled. “I’m tired of listening to you talk.” 

The Adrath hissed at the bloodied teenager. “Pain will continue until you provide information.” 

“This is nothing compared to what I’ll do to you.” Keith didn’t know what he was saying, hadn’t for awhile now. Anything remotely lucid was drawn straight from the blind fury coating him from the inside out. He was dripping with it, beads of sweat running down his temple. 

“There is no escape.”

“You go on believing that,” Keith said. “You’ll regret not killing me when I gut you.”

The Adrath put a large, clawed hand on Keith’s chest. “Continue resisting. I look forward to killing another paladin.” Keith barely had time to register the Adrath had admitted to murdering Lance when it shoved him. Keith swung back, feet lifting off the ground. 

Agony, as a concept, was a term Keith associated with the time he crashed his hoverbike in the desert. He’d been exploring the canyons surrounding the Lion carvings, chasing a feeling and hitting speeds well past the threshold of reckless. It cost him when the bike flipped and landed on his leg. 

It wasn’t the limp back to civilization that was agony; a well stocked med kit in the bike saw to that. No, the weeks that followed contending with a healing compound fracture (particularly after he threw out the prescription medication, afraid of being hazy if something occurred), that was agonizing.

Keith was reconsidering his definition. Blood trickled down his forearms, his shoulders were straining in their sockets, broken ribs grinding in protest. His momentum was cut short by a fist slamming into his gut. Screams dissolved into racking coughs. 

“You are as weak as him.” 

Keith couldn’t even think in words. Wasn’t going to stop him. Gathering blood from where he bit his tongue, Keith screwed up his face and spat at the Adrath. 

He missed their face completely, but a sticky red glob landed on its pale cloak. Keith was admiring his work when claws grabbed his left shoulder and yanked down. The joint dislocated with an audible pop.

Keith was too delirious with pain to answer new questions. Scenes of incomplete walls, empty doorframes and long sets of descending staircases faded in and out.

“Keith buddy, come on. Give me a sign here.” 

That name had meaning at some point, he was sure, but reality had narrowed to a series of harsh sensations. Keith yelped when pressure was applied to his shoulder. 

“Sorry, sorry.” 

He may not have known his name, but relief at hearing Hunk’s voice was practically tangible. Keith’s eyes fluttered open. Hunk was indeed crouched over him. The yellow paladin had a black eye and what looked like a burn on his cheek. 

“Can you move your fingers?” 

Keith tried, he really did. One hand twitched, the other didn’t. 

“Okay this is gonna hurt, like a lot, but then it’ll feel better.” Keith knew he was missing some vital piece of information but he sincerely doubted he could hurt more. “Don’t bite your tongue.”

He already had, so the point was moot. Keith clamped his jaw shut anyway as Hunk manipulated his unresponsive arm. 

“On three.” 

Keith squeezed his eyes shut. He hated Hunk’s tone of voice, hated whatever was happening. He just hurt everywhere and his arm was really cold. 

“One.”

Hunk, who Keith never considered a master of deception, blatantly abused Keith’s unquestioning faith in him by snapping the joint back into place on the first count. Keith shrieked, then went limp as whatever clicked relaxed his arm. 

“That’s it, you did great,” Hunk was patting Keith’s face as he fought to catch his breath, tears sliding down his temple and mixing with sweat. 

Keith had to talk. He needed a distraction. “Where’d you...learn...how’da...”

“Wrestling.” Hunk said, settling back with a groan. “Happens sometimes.” 

Keith remained flat on his back, eyes adjusting to the near dark. The surrounding room was coming into focus and it didn’t look good. Concrete walls, featureless, and an industrial door. The space wasn’t any larger than the dining area in the Castle, lit poorly by an annoyingly loud light above the door. 

“Hunk?”

“Yeah?”

“Wherethe _fuck_ arewe?” It came out in a rush. 

Hunk looked over from where he was examining Keith’s wrists. “I couldn’t tell you,” Hunk said, taking off his headband and tearing the material with an eerily loud rip. He began winding the orange band around an oozing cut on Keith’s arm. 

“How are...you so...calm.”

"They killed Lance."

Keith couldn’t think of anything less likely to come out of Hunk’s mouth in that deadly calm tone.

"I don't know where Pidge is, and you're all fucked up."

Keith didn’t think he’d ever heard Hunk swear. Rolling his head to the side, Keith squinted to see the yellow paladin better. It was definitely Hunk next to him, but he didn't sound like Hunk.

"When I woke up after they... I was really scared and didn't know what to do. I've been in here for hours. Had time to think." There wasn't any inflection in Hunk’s voice, anything at all. "We get out of this place or we die, and I don't think Lance would have wanted that. So, yeah." He paused. "I dunno, maybe I'm in shock. But I don't want to die here." 

Keith was closer to catching his breath, but he couldn't think of a damn thing to say.

"You were in love with him, right?" 

Time stopped. Keith couldn't even feel pain. The light above the door was buzzing and crackling, illuminating Hunk’s blank face in flickers and starts. 

"Pidge didn't say anything to me, but it was pretty obvious. He loved you back, you know. He was just really shit about showing it." 

Whatever air was in the dusty concrete basement wasn't reaching Keith's lungs. He didn't want to hear this. He didn't want to know.

"I was kind of hoping after last night you guys might..." Hunk trailed off, shook his head. "I dunno. I'd never seen him look so happy." 

Keith used to think a broken heart meant shattered, empty coffee cup pushed off a table. But there wasn't a crash or a moment of impact. This was tearing in his chest, ripping him apart and each body shaking sob was another wave of pain from his cracked ribs as Hunk hauled him into his arms, muffled apology in Keith's ear. 

\- 

It took a long time for Keith to calm down. When he ran out of tears - which didn't seem possible - he fell into a doze, leaching warmth off Hunk and turning what the yellow paladin said over and over. 

It hurt, everything hurt, but what Hunk said made sense. Maybe Lance had loved him, but Lance was gone. Now they escaped this hell hole or died trying. As much as a universe, a lifetime without Lance was pointless and awful Keith didn't want to give his up. If it was a fight the Adrath expected, it was a fight Keith would win. He owed Lance that much.  

It was also a fight that might take some planning, especially when a half conscious Pidge and a very drugged Coran were tossed into the cell with them. 

At the very least it explained why none of them had seen Coran at the party. The Altean told them, in slurred speech, that he'd been offered a drink on the way to the Event Hall and woken up here. Pidge roused halfway through Coran's account, squinting without their glasses and holding their right wrist tight to their chest but otherwise alert.

Hunk didn't bring up Lance again except for a blunt sentence explaining their capture to Coran. The Altean went white under his bruises and Keith couldn't articulate how glad he was when they moved directly to escape plans. Pidge was just as eager, unburied their face from Keith's shoulder as Coran discussed the layout of the facility. 

"Multilevel basement, at least three sets of staircases between us and the ground floor," Coran said, focus improving the longer they spoke. “Five guards that I've counted. All well armed, mostly those bloody electric batons." 

"So we have to be fast," Keith said as Hunk rubbed at a round electrical burn on his neck. Keith realized there were more than one. "Can everybody walk?" 

"I can," Hunk said, determined, as Coran confirmed. Pidge agreed as well, but sounded worried. "I can't see very far without my glasses." Pidge admitted, staring at their knees.

"Not a problem," Hunk said. "We aren't splitting up. What about you Keith?"

"I'll manage." 

"Is it just your ribs?" 

"Yeah.” Keith lied. The deep cuts window glass had carved in his feet last night wouldn’t hamper him with this much adrenaline in his system. He didn’t want the others to worry. 

“I think I have a plan-" Keith was readying his idea when the door banged open. All four of them scrambled back, Keith and Hunk shoving Pidge behind them in almost the same movement. They didn't have a chance to do anything more when an Adrath was tossed into the room and the door slammed shut again. 

A tortured Adrath was physically distressing to look at, but Keith couldn't tear his eyes away as the creature struggled to sit up. It was so far from human, bent yellow and gold scales, matted teal feathers quivering. The closest Keith could equate it to was an unidentifiable smear of road kill left drying in the highway margins. 

None of them spoke or made any move to help. Eventually, the alien crawled over to the wall, resting its back against the stone cell. The labored breathing of the Adrath filled the air, broke up the hum of the light. 

When it turned its head, Keith was met with a pair of iridescent eyes, unsettling on a primal level. 

"Who are you?" 

"Why?" Keith demanded. This newcomer would effect their plans; they didn't have time for this. 

A few broken feathers fluttered, its lilting trill undeniably anxious. "I... am vexed as to who inspired Naalika’s treasonous actions."

"The Ambassador?" Coran said. 

"Of Extraplanetary Affairs, yes." 

"The answer should be self evident," Pidge said curtly, channeling the same vein of irritation flowing through Keith. "Unless the Adrath have more visitors than your government admits." 

"Surely not the paladins of Voltron?" 

This time Hunk snorted. "Ten points to the Adrath in the corner." 

His comment was so out of place, so bordering on Lance territory Keith forgot what he was going to say next. He tried not to stare at Hunk as Coran began a rapid line of questioning. 

They learned the Adrath, Belani, was a lower member of parliament. They were also well acquainted with the official traveling on the ship Team Voltron rescued. Belani had accidentally discovered an open line of communication between Naalika and the Galra, resulting in the current situation. Coran relaxed the more they spoke, trading details Keith wasn’t familiar with but appeased the Altean. Keith didn't care if Belani was emperor of the damn planet, it didn't change the fact they were still trapped in this dirty basement. 

"Coran," Keith interrupted, patience burned to nothing. "We don’t have time for this. We have to get out of here before they split us up again." 

"Yes, of course," Coran said quickly, "you're absolutely right -"

"You can't be thinking of attempting an escape!" Belani recoiled, aghast. 

"More than just thinking," Hunk said. "Keith, you had an idea?" 

"Yeah,” Keith said, disregarding Belani’s distress and declarations of madness. “We know for sure now Naalika is in contact with the Galra. As a bargaining chip we're worth more alive." 

Pidge nodded. "Accurate."

"If they think one of us is in danger, they have to physically come and check." 

"Ambush them while they're distracted." Hunk concluded. 

"Basically." Keith shrugged. "Unless anybody else has an idea?" 

"Nah, I like it," Pidge said, "Simple and easy to remember. Even Lance could -" they froze in the act of adjusting glasses that weren't there. Keith could see the moment Pidge’s brain caught up with their mouth, the downward turn of their lips as their cheeks colored red. 

"Who’s Lance? Are there more of you?"

Belani fractured the tension like a bird hitting a sliding glass door. 

Keith impressed himself by pulling his thoughts together first. “That’s not important."

"But-"  

"Enough." Keith said, nearing a growl. "Or you’re staying here." 

Belani refrained from further remarks. 

Keith held the glare a few more seconds for good measure before returning to the group. "Alright. Who’s gonna be bait?" 

“Oh please.” Pidge grumbled, wiping under their nose with their good hand. “Obviously it’ll be me."

"It doesn’t have to be." 

"Don’t worry about it. What's wrong with me?" 

"Seizure?" Hunk offered. 

"Nice and vague." Pidge said. “Nothing like latent epilepsy to bring people together.” 

They ran over a few more details - where to stand, where to avoid being shocked (back of the neck, Hunk supplied, not going into any detail), who was teaming up with who. 

"Okay," Keith said. “That should be everything.”

Keith turned to Belani, who remained silent during their plotting. “Remember, if you try anything we outnumber you.” 

Belani unbent their form. "I am aware. Truthfully, I have no desire to remain any more than you." 

"Fine," Keith said. "But if you fall behind you're on your own. Everybody ready?"

It was a testament to something that nobody argued in Belani’s defense; even Coran just nodded in resigned affirmation. Keith tried not to think what that said about them as a team. Too late now. 

Keith started pounding on the door, shouting for attention. 

-

The plan worked about as well as Keith could have hoped with a team of three injured teenagers and a chemically impaired Altean. Two hulking Adrath arrived after only a few minutes of yelling, frames filling the doorway. Keith didn’t recognize either of them, but Hunk’s eyes widened considerably. 

Keith and Coran were ushered into the corner with Belani. Hunk held out in the middle of the room, insisting he had to hold Pidge to keep them from hurting themself. There was no need for an unobtrusive signal. When the Adrath next to Hunk knelt, Keith shouted ‘NOW’ and all hell broke loose. 

Keith went for it's knees, Coran for the baton. They had their guard prone and electrocuted at no cost but a ragged scratch down Coran’s arm from the Adrath’s flailing claws. Pidge and Hunk weren’t as successful attacking from the ground. The smallest paladin missed the baton, coming away with a handful of green feathers that enraged the Adrath instead of hindering it. Hunk punched it in the face but it managed to connecting the buzzing weapon with the yellow paladin’s shoulder. 

Keith expected Hunk to go down, not follow up with a second hit. The blow dazed the creature long enough for Pidge to wrest the baton from its hand and turn a mess of electricity on the owner’s neck. 

Hunk shrugged off his friend's concern as Pidge examined his arm. His casual ‘I had worse earlier’ was permanently lodged in Keith’s brain but they had no time to dwell, helping each other up and leaving the room hastily. 

In 10 minutes they made it much further than Keith expected a group in their condition to travel. Sets of stairs were blurring, Keith passed the baton he’d taken from an unconscious guard to Pidge on the second flight. He needed both hands; one for the handrail, the other barred across his chest to limit the shifting of his ribs. 

Coran was in the lead, side by side with Belani, who had grown increasingly keen as the key cards they lifted from the guards opened doors with chirping beeps. They had nothing by way of a map, but exit signs – stenciled with the unmistakable pattern of stairs and frightening caricature of an Adrath ascending them – provided a general direction.

This time, when they opened a door light changed from artificial to a gleam found in nature. A set of high windows well out of reach let in weak illumination and the constant sound of pattering rain.

“Just below street level, I reckon.” Coran said, peering around from the corner they gathered in. They had reached the top of this stairwell, needed to find the next. The quiet here was different from the resonating steps in the stairwell. Keith locked his knees as he studied the area, the raw skin on the bottom of his feet collecting dirt.

It was nearly possible to see across the entire floor space, metal beams were lined up like the bars of empty cells, office sized birdcages stacked side by side. Work benches and tables strewn with power tools broke up the expanse.

“Over there,” Hunk said, pointing. Keith could barely hear him above the drumming of rain. 

Rain. Lance missed rain. Keith had never asked him about that. Another tidbit, random slice of his past Keith picked up from Coran months ago. A conversation Keith would never have; questions that had answers, once. 

“Keith – come on.” Pidge nudged him with so little force Keith had to wonder if they made contact or he was creating false memories, false sensations to bury blue eyes. Keith sped up, trailing as close to Pidge as he could without tripping over them. 

Halfway between their entrance and the emergency exit, a door on the far wall swung open, bringing voices. The five escapees dived for respective cover. Keith pressed his back to one of the broad pillars, metal icy through his filthy dress shirt.

“Where did this miserable rain come from?”

“I warned you this morning. Double moons always bring storms.” 

“You did no such thing. And moons do not control the weather.” 

Keith glanced around. Pidge was lurking to his right with their small frame tucked neatly behind a generator. Hunk was just beyond, under a table with Coran. Belani had made it to the next pillar in the set, matching Keith’s posture but not fitting as well behind the curved edges. 

“Believe what you will. Paht and Tri had the sense to wear cloaks.”

“Paht and Tri have been indoors since the rain started.” The Adrath sounded positively petulant, heavy steps echoing. “Their rotation is finished and I’m not waiting any longer. Especially after Oto’s promotion.” 

The voices were crossing the room, but well on the other side. An entire floor of office space separate Keith and the others from their former captors. Keith waved until he had everyone’s attention.

“Oto does have a... distinct method of commanding.”

“If by distinct you mean insane, then yes, Oto has grown more distinct since our last job together.” 

“Axel, please don’t get us killed.” 

The other Adrath made a weird trilling Keith assumed was the human equivalent of an ‘ug’. As it gurgled, Keith gestured in the direction of the Adrath, then them and mouthed ‘Go’ indicating the door. They didn’t have long before the incapacitated guards were discovered. 

Pidge and Hunk flashed a thumbs-up, Coran nodded. As a team, they began creeping forward. The Adrath guard’s conversation grew more heated. Keith wasn’t particularly interested, but their voices carried in the empty air. 

“You know I’m right,” Axel grumbled. “The condition of Oto’s paladin – Hak, I thought we would be explaining another death.” 

“The Paladins are strong.” 

“They are children.”

“Is that why you showed restraint?” Hak, or whatever its name was, sounded angry. “We can still walk away.” 

Keith realized he was grinding his teeth, tried to focus completely on moving quietly around the maze of parts. 

“No. They are the key to preventing a Galra invasion.” Axel rationalized. 

“I thought you were interested in the money.” 

“Money doesn’t hurt.” 

“Axelti! Hackett! Report.” 

“Oto – we were looking for you.” 

Keith nearly collided with a table. Until now, two unknown voices had been arguing. The new voice wasn’t new at all, not to Keith. Now Lance’s murderer had a name.

Keith couldn’t say he made a conscious decision, but the nearest screwdriver found its way into his hand. His ribs were still screaming but it wasn’t a distraction. Pain sharpened his focus, whetstone for the anger unsheathing inside him. 

It wasn’t until Pidge’s fingers closed around his bloody wrist Keith realized he had changed directions. Pidge had set the baton down to use their good hand, digging their fingers into the torn material of Hunk’s headband. 

“Oto.” Keith said, under increasingly rapid breaths. “He killed him. He killed Lance.” 

Pidge’s eyes went cold, but they didn’t let go. In the background Oto was demanding a status update of the perimeter.

“Keith. We are leaving.” Pidge punctuated their statement with a squeeze, sending a network of pain up from Keith’s slit skin. 

“They deserve to die.” Keith hissed. Anger, hot then cold, fire then ice was crashing and reforming within him. Lance deserved better and Keith couldn’t give him that. But maybe he could remove this fucking Adrath from the equation, stop them from ruining anymore lives. 

Hunk and Coran were nearing the exit, hadn’t noticed Pidge and Keith’s failure to follow. 

“No shit.” Pidge said in an undertone. “Think I don’t know that? Think any of us aren’t prepared to flatten this city after they killed Lance? They’re going to die, Keith.” 

When Hunk talked about Lance’s death, Keith had the floor pulled out from beneath him. Hunk had lost his best friend and Keith could see the gaping hole. Keith hadn’t paid enough attention to notice Pidge had changed as well. They promised death with no anger, no emotion behind the statement. Keith saw none of his rage reflected in Pidge. They simply wore their calculated, unquestioned surety with an entirely new purpose. 

“They’ll die and it won’t change a fucking thing, but we’ll do it anyway.” Pidge said, same unchanging expression. “But not right now. None of us can pretend to enjoy pointless revenge if you die in the process. Save it for a time when you’re not leaving bloody footprints...bloody...” Pidge trailed off in the act of pointing out the thin stream of red pooling around Keith’s feet. 

“We need to go. Go now-.” Suddenly, Pidge sounded scared.

Keith didn’t wait for them to finish, grabbing Pidge’s hand and pulling them along. Until now Keith’s ribs were his main concern – but Pidge’s words brought a whole new level of awareness.

The cuts stretched as he peeled his feet off the ground, dry concrete sticking to the open wounds. They hadn’t taken three steps when Oto's voice carried.

“What is that?” 

The Adrath had reached the staircase, found the trail of uneven red smears Keith hadn’t even known he was leaving. 

“THERE. PALADINS.” 

When Pidge and Keith took off they had a decent head start on the Adrath. Running, however, was an action Keith’s body understood in practice but was not willing to execute properly. He bounced off a table, knocked over something that spilled pungent liquid and nearly went down over a wrench but they made it. Almost. 

Keith had a hand on the doorframe, was cramming Pidge inside when a searing pain embedded itself in his shoulder. He landed on the handrail, kept his footing by leaning all of his weight on the bar as his shoulder burned. 

“They’re right behind us!” 

Digging deep Keith shoved off and followed Pidge up the stairs. This staircase felt longer than the others, even without switchbacks.

The hallway they tumbled into was cooler than below, Keith could feel the change in air pressure on his skin. Belani had taken the lead to sprint toward the open door at the end of the hall. 

The exit was visible. Keith saw Belani and Hunk clear the door. Coran was nearly there, Pidge on his heels when Keith staggered into a wall, jarring his shoulder. The complaint department of Keith Kogane abruptly revoked the use of his legs. A hurt too many, jenga tower lost its final bar as his bloody feet, aching wrists, cracked ribs and new mystery pain tag teamed his consciousness; Keith hit the ground with a thud. Blearily peering over his shoulder, Keith could see the handle of a knife sticking out of his skin. Huh. 

Keith was still on the floor when Oto reached the hallway. The Adrath laughed. Keith was well beyond screaming as claws in his hair lifted him from the ground. 

“You were told,” Oto said, slamming Keith into a wall. “There is no escape.” 

Oto barked orders at the other guards as Keith slumped. In the natural light from the open door, Oto’s scales gleamed, rust coiling around inky black. 

“Your friends have abandoned you.”

There might have been a day, not so long ago, when Keith believed his life was a fair toll to pay for the others to escape. Held aloft by the Adrath responsible for Lance’s death Keith decided he wasn’t having any more of those days. 

Keith jammed the screwdriver he picked up less than a minute ago into Oto’s eye with everything he had left. The bit caught, skipped off the scales around its eye but Oto dropped Keith with a high screech anyway. 

Hitting the ground for a second time was more painful than the first. Except this time there were hands on him and a voice telling him to MOVE. 

Pidge had come back. As Pidge pulled Keith with their good arm, Hunk barreled past and slammed Oto into the stairway door. For a second Keith thought Oto might fall, but they caught the frame, claws gouging dents in the surface.

With an inhuman shriek Oto grabbed hold of Hunk and head butted him. Hunk staggered, couldn’t avoid the Adrath when it backhanded him into the wall, expanding the dent they made with Keith. Keith wasn’t on his feet as Hunk crumpled. He wasn’t looking in the right direction to see Coran swinging his baton at another guard either. No, Keith was doing nothing but watching as Oto reached over him and grabbed Pidge by the throat. 

Keith tried to hit Oto – no plan, anything to free Pidge – when the second guard yanked Keith off balance. A kick to Keith’s weakened ribs put an end to that. Keith was pulled back, suddenly had a complete view of Oto strangling Pidge as the guard secured its grip on Keith. 

“Actions have consequences.” Oto said, eyes bulging.

Pidge's struggles were growing progressively weaker, small hands scrabbling at the claws closed around their throat.

"STOP."

Oto swiveled at Keith's outburst, head cocked like a curious bird. 

"It was my plan," Keith said, straining against the grip the Adrath behind had on him. Blood was oozing from where the dagger was embedded in Keith's shoulder, spreading stain on his formerly white shirt. "They were following orders." 

Though Pidge hardly weighed anything, their body made an impressive smack when it hit the ground. Choked gasps echoed, rain drumming harder outside. Oto smiled, rows of teeth exposed. "You admit to planning this escape?" 

A gust of freezing wind pushed through the empty door, flapping the Adrath’s cloaks and sending a shiver up Keith's back, cooling the growing wet patch on his shirt. 

"Yes." 

"No!" Coran said, finding what dignity he could on his knees by straightening his spine. "He didn't. I'm the highest ranking member here, my word was final." 

"The Altean lies." 

Ready to rebuff Coran, Keith’s words died in his throat as Belani stepped out of the rain, shaking water from their feathers.

"The Red Paladin orchestrated the escape plan."

"You motherfuck-" Keith cut off with a grunt as Belani grabbed the handle of the knife sticking out of his shoulder, wrenching it free as they strode by. 

"Remove him. I have thought of a different purpose for the Altean." Coran was dragged out of the room as Keith gasped, vision swimming. Belani continued speaking as the Altean was hauled away.  

"My planning would have been successful if they hadn't gone back for their friend." Belani said dismissively, wiping a long trail of Keith's blood on Hunk’s shirt. Hunk didn't react. "Loyalty at its worst. Now they’re all still here and I," Belani said, addressing the two remaining guards, "have no one to lead me to the Castle of Lions. Remind me, what were the orders?" 

No one responded. At Oto’s feet, Pidge was trying to sit up, wheezing. Belani rested a boot on their back. 

"I said stop!" Keith yelled hoarsely. "It was me! Get off them!"

Belani didn't acknowledge him. "It was beneficial to allow a few paladins escape. All of them, if necessary. But this," they waved the knife, "interrupted my plans. How very, very unfortunate." With every 'very' Belani increased the pressure of their boot, shoving Pidge's chest to the floor as they squirmed. 

"You made your point!" Keith felt desperation like a living thing inside of him, panic in every breath as Belani continued to drive their heel towards the base of Pidge’s neck. Keith was yanked to the side for his outburst, head bouncing off a metal beam. Everything became very blurry and for a second he couldn't hear over the whine in his ears. 

"...who cannot follow a simple direction. Oto, this blade belongs to you?" 

"Yes." 

Keith's vision cleared slowly as Belani spoke. His view was sideways now, blood spreading in his peripheral. Several feet away, Keith could just make out Pidge, trapped under Belani’s boot. 

"I have no use for incompetent subordinates." 

What followed happened in quick succession. Belani was trading Oto’s knife from one hand to the other, back and forth and from one pass to the next the blade was lodged in Oto’s throat. The body fell into Keith's line of sight, nearly on top of Pidge. 

"And you, Red Paladin," Belani said, almost as an afterthought as Oto gargled on silver blood. "Your friends have shown remarkable devotion.” They bent the word into something ugly. “Most admirable. I won't punish you for organizing this little tryst. You weren’t impairing my plans, if anything you expedited them." They finally stepped off Pidge, leaving a muddy boot print on Pidge’s back. 

Claws returned to Keith's tangled hair, forcing his neck back. Belani crouched, low enough for Keith to see into the whorl of their multicolored eyes. 

"I'll punish your friends." 

-

The long tube of light above the door buzzed, flickering intermittently. A glittering bug beat its wings against the surface frantically.

At his side, Pidge whimpered. 

Keith tucked his arm more protectively around them, pushing Pidge's head further into the crook of his uninjured shoulder. The Adrath had wrapped Keith's shoulder and thrown him and the prone forms of Pidge and Hunk in their basement room, or one identical to it. Coran was gone.

It took the last of his strength, but Keith managed to pull both of the barely conscious paladins over to the wall. Cracked ribs vied for attention, at war with the hole Belani had twisted in his shoulder; Keith dismissed it all in favor of cradling Pidge to his side as tightly as possible and occasionally patting Hunk’s head, which had ended up in his lap. 

Keith had been forced to watch as Pidge and Hunk were injected with far more of a drug than could possibly be necessary. Hunk hadn’t been in a position to do anything, but Pidge. Pidge had fought. Watching the fire drain from their body as Belani pushed the plunger down was like watching a tire blow out. Constant motion, an explosion, tumbling and a final silent stop as Pidge hung listlessly by the scruff of their shirt. When they injected Keith with a fraction of the stuff, he hardly felt it. 

Keith was powerless; drawn from the same futility rooting him when Lance had been kicked out the window. As if he were nothing more than a spectator. Keith couldn’t even find satisfaction knowing Lance’s killer was gone. Pidge was right. Oto was dead and it didn’t change a thing. It was the last thing in Keith’s head as the basement distorted, incomplete darkness splintering like ice. 

-

The star room was empty. Keith expected as much, standing at the edge of the glass. Less than a week ago, he'd been scared of falling. Didn't sound like such a terrible idea now that Lance had done the falling for him. 

“Keith?”

Keith started at Shiro's voice. The room wasn't as empty as he thought. With the dark corners, Team Voltron’s Leader - what was left of it - blended neatly into a corner. Surprise melted back to numbness as Keith fussed with his sleeves. 

“Why are you up?”

Keith couldn't remember trying to fall asleep, just found himself here. He shrugged. “Can't sleep. I miss...” 

“Lance.” Shiro answered for him. “Do you blame yourself?”

The question was cutting and Keith couldn't make eye contact. He nodded once, heart in his throat. 

“You should.” Shiro’s words landed like a punch. “He followed you into the bar, Keith. What were you thinking?”

“I-I wasn't...” Tears were pooling. Keith bit his lip to keep it from trembling. 

“Clearly. If Lance hadn't been drugged, he could have defended himself.”

Keith could hardly whisper. “I didn't mean to.” 

“Is that what you're going to tell his parents? What about Hunk and Pidge? What am I supposed to tell Pidge’s Father and Matt when we find them?” 

Keith was crying in earnest now, drops running off his face and hitting the glass, forming silent new constellations. He didn't mean for Pidge and Hunk - Pidge and - what happened to them? Keith couldn't remember anything but bloody footprints. 

“Why didn't you save them Keith?” Keith gasped, pain arcing down his back and across his chest. 

“Keith? Keith!”

“I'm sorry-” Keith could barely choke out an apology. "I'm sorry, s-sorry.”

“Keith, I need you to focus.” 

The voice sounded like Shiro, but it was wrong. Too close and quiet and he didn't sound mad anymore. 

“Keith, wake up. I need your help.”  

The floor of the star room flickered fluorescent. A metallic hum from the light above the door brushed against Keith's consciousness and he jerked back, almost slamming his head into the basement wall. 

“Careful-” Shiro said, concern heavy on his features. Keith blinked. Shiro was crouched next to him, hands bound. “You with me?”

“I– what?” 

It took several minutes of convincing for Keith to acknowledge it was in fact Shiro sitting in the basement cell with him and not a hallucination or more realistic version of his dream. Pidge and Hunk remained unresponsive during the conversation – triggering another delay as Keith panicked and Shiro had to take time convincing him the other paladins were breathing, albeit in rapid, shallow breaths. 

“I need you to reactivate my arm,” Shiro said, offering his prosthetic at an awkward angle. “Allura cut the powerlink to convince them I couldn’t escape on my own.” 

Keith didn’t question him or ask for clarification. Shiro’s arrival felt unreal, entire interaction tinged with a false, numb aura, like none of this was happening and at any moment Keith would wake up. He couldn’t work with his left arm, clumsily picking at the inner workings of a panel on Shiro’s forearm with shaky fingers. With a flare of purple that hurt Keith’s eyes, Shiro was out of his restraints and moving quickly, pulling a set of vials out of a cavity in his bicep and reaching to adjust Pidge and Hunk. 

Keith didn’t like that, growling at Realistically Impossible Shiro when he put a hand near Pidge. 

“I need them sitting up to administer the antidote.” Shiro said patiently. 

“Me first.” 

“Keith, I need you to trust me–”

“I don’t.” Keith said, and the honesty hurt almost as much as his creaking ribs. He wasn’t in a position to do anything to prevent Shiro from rejecting or overpowering him, but it didn’t matter. If anyone was injected, it would be him. Keith didn’t trust this. 

The hurt on Shiro’s face set quickly to tired sympathy. “Okay. This can be disorientating at first but it’ll help you focus. The effects don’t last long but...this is fine. We can make this work.” 

The pinprick below his ear was incredibly unpleasant; effects instantaneous when the suffocating blanket wrapped around his mind dissipated. Keith swore as what he was doing, who he was talking to rearranged and collected meaning with childish ease. 

“You with me?” 

“Yeah – sorry.” Pain had faded to manageable, a hasty retreat leaving him sore but mobile. “What do you need me to do?”

“If you can hold Pidge– yes, like that.” 

They worked together, rousing the green and yellow paladins with haste. In a series of flashes, Shiro produced their bayards, passing them around. Keith listened carefully to how Allura tricked Belani by trading a ‘disabled’ Shiro for Coran. It was during the specifics of the escape plan Keith hit a brick wall at full speed. 

“ _WHAT?_ ” 

“The signal,” Shiro repeated, “Lance is planting explosives on the north east–”

“HE’S ALIVE?” Hunk nearly toppled Shiro as he lunged, Pidge making similar exclamations from the ground. 

“Shhh–” Shiro’s hands fluttered as he looked to the door. “Yes – I should have started with that–” 

“You think?” Pidge said, not checking their volume. 

Keith didn’t make a sound, reeling from the drugs pumping through his system and Shiro’s assurances as the other two demanded answers. The bandage Hunk had been tightening around Keith’s shoulder was coming loose, unraveling with the same lazy curls as Keith’s mind. Lance was alive. He was alive and out there, in the same building as Belani and the rest of the Adrath guards, facing the same perils as the rest of them, but alive. Keith tightened his grip on his bayard until his hand shook. They were getting out of here. All of them. 

“After the first bomb,” Shiro said when he successfully convinced Hunk and Pidge there would be time for answers later. “We have fifteen minutes before the second. Allura will be waiting with the shuttle in a parking lot on Nelava Street, a few blocks away.” Shiro continued, providing rough directions from the building they were currently trapped in and what symbols to follow on Adrath signage. 

“Are we ready?” 

The three paladins activated their bayards. As a group, they looked rough. Shiro managed a semblance of normality in all black; the rest of them were a mess in the abused and stained remnants of their party attire. Missing buttons, ripped collars, untucked shirts smeared with grime and dried blood. Bruised and bleeding and maybe a little fucked up, but not beaten. 

“Stay close to each other.” Shiro said. Keith subtly took ahold of Pidge’s shirt tail, adjusting his free hand for a better grip when they didn’t pull away.

As if in response to Shiro’s final advice an explosion rocked the building, shaking dust from crevices. Shiro didn’t waste a second, cleanly slashing the door open. 

They ran out into the hall, passing doors Hunk blasted off their hinges. In the stairwell Keith took the lead, sword better suited for close combat if they encountered resistance. 

They were halfway up when the second explosion, far too early, crashed down. Lightning cracks rippled along the walls as the lights flickered. 

Keith, just ahead, lost his grip on Pidge when the stairs collapsed. Dust filled the air, Keith had a one handed grip on the handrail as the ground dropped under his feet. In seconds the rumbling abated, leaving a cloudy silence. Keith hauled himself up a few steps and stared down at the collapsed staircase, searching desperately for any sign of life in the heap of rubble.

“KEITH.” The shout was barely there, muted words restarting Keith’s heart. 

“I’m here! Are you guys okay?” 

“We’re fine.” Keith couldn’t tell if Shiro’s muffled voice was hiding anything. “But we can’t use this route without collapsing the stairs further.”

Keith cleared his throat of the concrete dust. “What do I do?” 

“Continue as planned. You know the way?”

“Yes.” Keith said. He didn’t, but by now that was beside the point. “What about you?” 

There was a pause and the voices grew less distinguishable. Keith’s heart reconsidered its revival until Shiro spoke again. “There’s an elevator shaft on the other side of the building. We’ll meet you outside.” 

“Okay.” 

“Be careful.”

“Right.” Keith said. Then to himself, “Right. I can do this.” If he could get out of the building, he could plan from there. 

Keith powered up the stairs, straight into the room they were spotted in last time. Evidence of the explosion was abundantly clear here. Tangled metal, crippled beams warped into nests of sharp edges; the other half of the building had crumbled on itself. Keith dug through the rubble to find the door they used yesterday – and how yesterday could feel like a lifetime and a half ago, Keith didn’t know – and yanked on the handle. 

Nothing happened. The frame was bent, door lodged permanently shut. Keith made a noise of frustration when his bayard didn’t melt through the metal like Shiro’s arm. He whirled to check the room for another exit, concrete dust settling on his skin. Along the still standing wall the high windows let in thin streams of light, highlighting the thick layers of particles in the air.

Keith rushed over. Maybe he couldn’t get a door open, but he sure as hell could shatter glass. Working as fast as he could, Keith pulled the nearest workbench to the wall. The metal feet screeched on the floor leaving scratches and assaulting his ears. Searching, Keith found more equipment to add to his makeshift ladder. It took a few minutes and Keith had to rest after hauling a second metal container of tools over, ribs twinging.

Breaking the window wasn’t quite as easy as he hoped, but on the third swing – which nearly sent him tumbling – the clear coating smashed. Keith brushed the opening off as well as he could with his cuffs to avoid impaling his fingers on needles of glass. 

Nothing but a pull up. Something he’d done over and over, a motion that should be nothing but second nature at this point. Right. He tossed his bayard up first so he could use both hands, missing his gloves. Keith closed his eyes and pulled. 

Dragging himself to street level stretched his left shoulder. Even with the bandage, a rivulet of blood snaked down his armpit to drip along his side. Gasping, Keith hooked a leg on the sill and managed to roll himself out and onto his back. 

The sky swam into focus, static grey. Keith dragged a few more long breaths before sitting up, contending with a head rush as he looked up and down the alley. A few figures moved at one end, far enough away Keith couldn’t see features but close enough to know they weren’t human. 

“RED PALADIN.”

What Keith thought was a pile of rubble rose, took the shape of a golden Adrath. Keith scrambled to get his feet under him, groping around in the dirt for his bayard. He barely had time to fix his stance when Belani charged, brandishing a baton. 

They collided, Belani’s weapon connecting with the flat side of Keith’s blade. Keith grunted, quickly pulling back to keep the electricity from sliding towards his chest. The Adrath swung at Keith with its free hand, missing as Keith staggered back. There was no time to properly recover. Keith barely raised his bayard in time to fend off another attack. 

“Insolent creature,” Belani rumbled. “Don’t make me kill you.” 

Keith was too busy backpedaling to respond, chest heaving. Belani fought with a singular determination, clearly favoring the baton. 

Back and forth across the alleyway, Belani’s taunts diminished to grunts and swearing as Keith refused to go down. Keith fought hard, but it was getting harder to think. Whatever remnants of Shiro’s antidote remained in his system were fading fast. Keith's bayard was heavier than usual, his muscles trembling with the effort of holding it up.

Keith noticed belatedly he was being backed into a corner, saw the brick wall coming but couldn’t see a way out. He was off balance, each new idea seemed worse than the last. Belani was smiling, a horrible grimace, pressing their advantage when Keith acted on an impulse. Thinking clearly wasn’t getting him anywhere. 

Instead of parrying Keith kicked, foot connecting with Belani’s wrist. As the Adrath fumbled Keith clipped the baton with the side of his blade, slicing it neatly in half. The electrical current shorted out, half of the metal rod not held in Belani’s claws hitting the wall with a clang. 

Belani hesitated, Keith didn’t. Swinging in a high arc he drove his blade into Belani’s neck. It was a move Keith practiced a hundred times, one that relieved countless Galra drones of their heads. Except Belani wasn’t made of metal, their thick scales slowing the path of Keith’s sword.

Keith was panting, body shaking as he pressed harder, face to face with the Adrath as it crumpled forward. Belani’s eyes bulged, glassy orbs pressing out of their sockets. Keith worked the bayard one last time before pulling it free, snarling. 

Belani fell in a misshapen pile at Keith’s feet. Thin, silvery blood previously circulating inside the Adrath gushed from their torn open throat. It coated the sword in Keith’s hand, stream splattering on his filthy dress pants. 

There was nothing in Keith’s stomach to throw up, but bile flooded his mouth as Keith doubled over, gagging. He landed hard on the concrete, jarring his hands and knees. Beside him, his bayard deactivated with a flash. Keith couldn’t move. Belani's face as Keith drove his blade to the hilt was burned under his eyelids. He had to get up, had to run, but he couldn’t breathe. Keith flinched when a hand touched his back, but it was Lance’s panicked voice in his ear. 

“Keith, Keith are you okay? Where are you hurt?”

Keith coughed wetly, eyes watering furiously as Lance dropped beside him, hands roaming, looking for injuries and finding plenty. 

“Idiot, how’d you get separated?” Lance seemed to rapidly come to terms with his own exasperation and Keith’s lack of response. “Doesn’t matter. I’m here.” 

And he was there. Through the haze of pain and throat tearing coughs, Keith could make out the awful concern on Lance’s face. Lance was there, beside him. 

Somebody called out. Lance answered. Keith’s breaths were coming in ragged pants, he pinched his eyes shut. Shiro had said Lance survived, but Lance couldn’t possibly be there. Had he been drugged again? Injections, the kind Belani drove into Pidge’s neck as they squirmed. Belani who was dead by Keith’s hand. Keith reached for something in the moment to focus on. 

He was hit with the smell of vomit, nauseating puddle not far from his face. Keith tried to hold his breath and failed miserably. Then Lance was holding his face, palms pressed to Keith’s cheeks. The other boy had taken his gloves off. 

“Keith, can you look at me?” 

Lance sounded so worried and hopeful Keith put every effort into forcing his heavy head up, guided by Lance’s hands. Wide blue eyes met his and the reality that Lance was _there_ and _alive_ hit full force as the blue paladin studied his face. Relief was as powerful as it was upsetting and Keith didn’t trust it. He already accepted Lance was gone, Lance was dead, Lance wasn’t coming back. 

“Okay. You’re okay. Just keep looking at me.” Lance said, thumb brushing Keith’s cheek. “We’re leaving now. You weigh more than me and I don’t want to drop your heavy ass and hurt you more so we're waiting for Shiro, but we’re leaving. Keep looking at me.” 

Keith complied, trying not to cry. There wasn’t anywhere he wanted to look beside Lance, but his eyes were getting blurry, breaths coming in shorter gasps. He could just make out that the other boy had a split lip and a red scratch traced along his hairline. This couldn’t be real. He wanted this more than air but things like this didn’t just happen. 

When rapid footsteps approached Keith made the mistake of glancing over. Shiro was running, stumbled over a body in his haste. Lance noticed too late as Keith’s eyes flicked back to the bloody corpse. Belani. Keith had killed him. Drove a blade into his neck, cut deep enough to sever tendons and arteries. He did it on purpose, he was so angry and scared, and now Keith knew what it felt like to kill someone he’d been introduced to by name. 

Keith’s gut twisted; he pulled back weakly, heaving another mouthful of stomach acid. Lance had ahold of him immediately, pressing Keith’s head to his chest and blocking his view. Keith buried his face in Lance’s shirt, blearily aware he was getting the hot spit running down his chin on Lance. 

“Told you to look at me dummy.”

Keith couldn’t process much more as he was pulled to standing, held securely between Lance and Shiro. His throat was burning and the ground tilted under him; another explosion ripped the air, but it was further away than the first two. 

Shiro and Lance picked up the pace, winding around buildings as Keith’s bare feet hardly brushed the sidewalk. This happened before, maybe. Being carried by Lance and Shiro. Keith was making a habit of it. At least he didn’t hurt as much as they kept walking. Which might not be a good thing. 

Any concern over the pain he wasn’t feeling kept a healthy distance when the shuttle came into view in an empty parking lot. Adrath were swarming the small craft, Keith heard Shiro swear under his breath. His concern was unwarranted. They weren’t even close enough to draw weapons when the aliens began falling. Lance might have laughed. 

Keith wasn’t sure if his eyesight was working right. It looked like Princess Allura was whirling a staff a head taller than her, dropping Adrath as they tried to flank her with an incredible economy of movement. One of them flew several feet and hit a chain link fence with a crash. 

She finished well before Shiro or Lance could offer assistance, brushing off her hands. 

“You alright?” Shiro asked. 

“Hurry and get in,” Allura said, activating the door. 

“The others?” 

She finally turned to look Shiro full in the face, smirking in a very un-princess like way. “We’ve been waiting on you dear.” 

Shiro smiled. “I love you.” 

“Okay, gross,” Lance said pulling away and taking Keith with him. Without Shiro’s support Lance managed a controlled descent, guiding them both to the ground and resting Keith’s back on his chest. Hunk waved tiredly at Keith from the bench opposite as Shiro took a seat beside Pidge, wrapping an arm around them. Allura headed quickly to the cockpit, patting Coran’s shoulder on the way past. 

“Everybody hold on.” Allura called out. 

Keith wasn’t sure what he was supposed to hold on to, but Lance had him covered, wrapping his arms around Keith’s waist. Keith could feel heat radiating off the other boy, see brown hands splayed on the disgusting, torn material of his shirt. Wasn’t enough. 

Keith squirmed, ignoring Lance’s squeak. He needed to see his face, none of this could be real. He rolled over to secure a death grip on Lance’s collar as the shuttle shuddered beneath them, latching onto the material until his fingers cramped.

“Keith, careful, your arm–” 

“Don’t care.” Keith sounded like he’d been swallowing gravel. He pushed on. “Wanna see you. Need to make, make sure. You’re here.” 

Lance’s face softened. He rested one hand very gently on the back of Keith’s neck to steady him. “I’m here.” 

“Yeah?” It wasn’t a question, but Keith needed an answer. “Are– are you sure?” 

“One hundred percent positive.” Lance said, holding Keith’s gaze the way some people held hands. Like a promise. “And I’m not going anywhere.” 

“Congratulation, losers. Can you please wait to do this until I am out of earshot? Just seal me in a healing pod for the next month and I won’t bother you a bit.” Pidge’s voice floated over from somewhere behind Keith. “I’m begging you.” 

“Pidge. Let them have their moment.” Hunk sounded perfectly exasperated. 

Lance giggled. It was a little strained but indisputably real. “Sorry Pidge.” Keith wasn’t feeling sorry in the least, so he stayed silent. Lance was looking at him again, like Keith was something special. “We can talk later.”

Keith just stared back. Later. There was a later now. He let his shoulders relax gradually, sinking into Lance.

“Is that okay?” Lance asked. 

“Yeah,” Keith said, voice small. “More than okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *warnings for torture/vomiting/injections but nothing THAT graphic 
> 
> it's (basically) cuddles and rainbows (mostly) from here on out. I swear to you. unless sarah has something to say about it then you’re on your own. 
> 
> Update when I’ve scraped myself into something human shaped. this process is hastened by using your typing skills to put words in the box below. Prove you’re a human (or sentient enough to comment), I beg you.


	5. Couch, again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I say cuddles and rainbows? I meant cuddles and PAIN-bows BUCKLE UP NERDS 
> 
> (spoiler alert: I listened to sarah)

Pidge went down first. Keith wouldn’t have noticed if not for Shiro’s panicked tone as he called Allura from the cockpit. Coran was a close second, head slumping in time with Allura’s arrival. 

“It’s the inhibitors they’ve been injected with.” Allura said. “Hunk, how are you feeling?” 

There was a pause, far too long for someone like Hunk to respond. “.... dizzy.”

“Lance, is Keith awake?” 

The hands around his waist shifted with Keith’s attempt to sit up. “Yeah,” Lance answered, “but he’s pretty out of it.”

“What’s wrong with them?” Keith croaked, words leaving an acrid taste on his tongue. The comment cost him, a cough racking dull nails down his throat. 

“We’ll know more when we get back,” Allura said, ever poised. “Shiro and I prepped the Healing Pods in case–” She stopped. Keith’s concern spiked around his muffled coughing. Rarely did Allura falter. She was bent over Coran, fingers waiting on his pulse point. Finally, she nodded, satisfied. “We didn’t know what condition you would be in.” 

Keith wilted against Lance as his coughing subsided. Lance’s hands were splayed across his chest, fingers creasing the filthy and torn material. It hurt where Keith’s ribs stung, but he didn’t want Lance to stop. They escaped the planet; this was supposed to be the easy part. They were supposed to be okay. 

Keith shut his eyes and pressed closer to Lance, sampling a memory, fuzzy, of arms wrapped around him. Not so long ago, he thought. The others talked, Keith resumed drowsing until a fully fledged argument was born. 

“I’m not leaving him alone.” Lance said. 

“I don’t like it any more than you.” Shiro replied firmly. “But Keith is responsive. I can’t carry Keith and Coran, and Allura will have her hands full with Hunk. I know you’re concerned, but we need to move the unconscious group to the pods first.”

Shiro’s logic hadn’t calmed Lance in the least, if anything the opposite. “Then we make two trips. I’ll stay here with Pidge and Keith.” Lance’s grip on Keith tightened. “I’m not leaving him.” 

“We aren’t leaving him Lance. The Healing Pods are three floors down.” 

“I don’t care. You don’t leave injured people alone. Pretty sure you told me that one.”

“Ten minutes-” Shiro started wearily, posture suggesting he already knew a losing battle when he heard one. 

“Pidge can wait with us, they wouldn’t care.” Lance said, gaining an octave. “They would probably insist.” 

“We may not have that kind of time.” Allura’s tone was clipped from the cockpit. Shiro sighed, clearly hoping to avoid morbid honesty. 

Keith reluctantly cleared his sore throat. “Time?” 

“The antidote was based off what we found in Lance’s system yesterday. We didn’t have time for comprehensive testing.” Shiro admitted. “It seems to be working better on you.” 

Yesterday. How the hell had the party been less than two days ago? Keith shoved the looping distraction aside. “Pidge and Hunk– had a higher dose because they, they came back for me–” Keith faltered as implications blurred into place. Pidge and Hunk were drugged to punish him. It was his fault if they died.

“No it's not,” Lance said fiercely. “It's not your fault. None of this is.” 

Keith hadn’t known he was speaking out loud, or how Lance could make sense of anything between his weak gasping and coughing. 

By the time Keith could breathe properly an unspoken understanding had been reached. Pidge, Hunk and Coran needed to be prioritized. An unsettling quiet filled the shuttle for the rest of the ride, thrill of success scraped raw by the unconscious team members.

Lance held Keith closer as the shuttle landed, resounding clank and hiss of releasing mechanisms grating on Keith’s ears.

“You still with me?” 

“Nngh.” 

“Good.” Lance sighed, warm puff of breath on the back of Keith’s neck. “We’re here. I’m moving Pidge then I’ll be right back.” 

“Shur.” 

“Ten minutes.” 

Ten minutes. On another day, time for a power nap and Keith was so tired. All he had to do was sit and wait. 

Keith watched blearily as the conscious members of Team Voltron gathered the others. Lance sat Keith with his back to the bench, hesitated, then pressed the fastest of kisses to the top of Keith’s head before shooting off to take Pidge from Shiro. 

Keith was trying to figure out what just happened as steps faded, door clamping shut on Shiro and Allura conferring. Then nothing.

Nothing at all, actually. Keith had seen the patch of red he bled on Lance’s shirt, but his shoulder didn’t hurt. Keith twisted his neck, poking the stain experimentally. Nothing. His fingers sank to the second knuckle between the folds of the makeshift bandage, came away bright red but Keith couldn't feel. 

Keith couldn’t look away from the slick bright mess smeared on his hand, stomach churning. He could handle himself, adapted to dire situations. Didn’t mean he liked seeing blood. He wasn’t a monster like Oto.

Dead, knife in the throat. Belani put it there. Then Keith turned around and did the same to Belani. What did that make him? Keith was tracing lines of thought like loose string, unable to grasp anything as his blood stained hand shook. 

They deserved to die. They killed Lance, at least they had then. But Keith knew Lance was alive when he killed Belani. 

What had he done? The low murmur in the back of his mind found no evidence to support Keith’s failing justifications. Blood on his hands. How cliché. Hastily dragging his palm across his shirt just made it dirtier, collecting concrete dust and flecks of silver. The dried Adrath blood glinted like loose confetti, Keith couldn’t scrape that off either. His left arm was dead; breathing was difficult, hitched and irregular. 

The shuttle around him was losing vibrancy as rapidly as Keith lost his fraying self awareness. He had a purpose beyond killing and blood but he forfeited that by slaughtering Belani. He was a failure as a paladin, didn’t belong on a team with Hunk or Pidge or Lance. What if he hurt them? He wasn’t any better than the Adrath. 

By the time Lance skidded back with an apology on his lips Keith had effectively convinced himself he wasn’t a person anymore. Hunched over, gripping the back of his neck and trembling, fingernails cutting into his skin, Keith barely recognized Lance speaking. 

“Okay, okay, that’s a lot of blood. Need to get you to the others. You’ll be okay.” 

Keith didn’t listen as the other boy caught his breath. It wasn’t until Lance knelt in front of him Keith freaked out. 

The past ten minutes of spreading numbness and senseless screaming in his head had Keith scrabbling back like a frightened animal, left arm giving out as he scrambled. When Lance went to catch him Keith’s unintelligible shout startled him into flinching back. His struggles put a few feet between them before Lance could recover. 

“Keith–”

“Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.” Keith was stumbling over his words so badly they were hardly more than breathy exclamations. 

Lance stilled, hands open. “I won’t hurt you. It’s me.” 

“I know.” Keith whimpered, grabbing the side of his head. He knew. He knew Lance and he couldn’t do this. He wasn’t whoever Lance thought he was; whoever Lance might have loved. “I’m not, not me. I’m not.”

The concern on Lance’s face collided with confusion.

“I’m sorry,” Keith said, and he meant it. “I can’t be...whatever I was. I don’t even know who that is.” He knew how he sounded: crazy and frantic. The blank space in his head was buzzing and threatening to crack and spill everything he wasn’t on the white shuttle floor.

“Your name is Keith Kogane.” Lance waited for Keith to glance over, involuntary twitch. “You’re a paladin of Voltron. We’re on the Castle ship–”

Keith made a noise of frustration. Lance wasn’t listening and he was going to get himself hurt. “Paladins are supposed to protect people.” Keith ground out, hand clenching and unclenching. “Not kill them. I’m not that. I’m not anything.” 

Lance didn’t respond, which was somehow worse. Keith couldn’t look, pulled at a handful of hair to distract. It didn’t work. He wasn’t here, and there was an awful truth in there somewhere: maybe he had been, for a little while. Now he wasn’t. 

“Your favorite color is red.” 

Keith almost didn’t hear Lance over his panicked gasping. What was Lance talking about? Why did that matter? 

“You used to think the moon landing was faked.” 

Keith pulled apart each word, assigning picture book meaning and not quite understanding why. 

“You hate country music but listen to it anyway.” 

He knew that. Remembered the shitty swaying melodies out of the crappy radio he found in the desert shack. The static hiss of tragically predictable cowboy tales. Better than silence and howling wind.

“You’re right hand dominant but write with your left.”

Keith’s fingers twitched, the hand in his hair slipping, shifting to the material of his shirt. Dirty, red, silver. 

Lance carried over the tirade kicking off in his head. “The first time you ran away you made it all the way to Disneyland.” 

Keith blinked. A flicker, a memory. Fireworks from the backseat of a police car.

“The woman who caught you stealing her hoverbike taught you to ride. You taught her to pick locks.” 

Oddly specific. She wore tarnished rings, cracked sunglasses and a black bandana. He never said goodbye, child services showed up in the middle of dinner. A story told in part – Lance knew the half of it – dragged from Keith over a sea of stars. Lance listed them, one after the other, all the things Keith let slip back before. A house of cards, snapshot. Everything Keith told Lance to convince him Keith was a real person. 

“You only put sugar in your coffee if you don’t think anybody is looking.” 

The cards fell. That wasn’t a story or something shared. Worse, it was true. 

“Whenever you’re on dishes you feed scraps to the mice.”

He did. Stacked the plates and pushed crumbs in the direction of curious whiskers. He didn’t think anyone noticed. (But it wasn’t anyone, it was Lance). Keith bit the inside of his lip, took a few short breaths through his nose.

“You leave Pidge snacks and they think its Hunk. You have a signal for Allura if Shiro is having a bad day. I think you might be hoarding blankets in your room. Every time we stop at a planet you pocket a rock or leaf. You’re a terrible liar, you never hold eye contact.”

He didn’t stop, describing habits and ticks Keith had no memory of telling Lance. Observations, details Keith never imagined anyone would bother to notice because they had nothing in common besides being about him. Things Lance had no business remembering.

Lance – alive and in front of him in the shuttle, docked at the Castle. The longer Lance spoke, the better control Keith could gather, puzzle pieces glued in place to form a life Keith recognized. 

Finally, Keith locked eyes with the other boy. Lance faltered, caught himself. “...and you blush really easily.” 

“Jerk.” Keith muttered. 

“It's true,” Lance said, offended. “You’re doing it now.” He was still crouched a bit away, hesitant. “Are you here?”

“I... I think?” Keith reached for Lance, refusing to mull over whatever headspace he left behind, heaved a little gasp of relief when Lance caught his shaking hand halfway. Lance’s fingers were warm and equally grubby. “Sorry.”

“When are you gonna learn?” Lance said. “You have nothing to be sorry for.” 

Keith did, he knew it, but knowing was manageably irrelevant with Lance holding his hand. “Kay.” 

“Good.” Lance nodded. “Allura and Shiro should be worried about us by now. This won’t be fun, but leaning on me is probably better than me dragging you.” 

“Yeah,” Keith agreed. “Lance?”

Lance was wrapping an arm around him, paused nose to nose. “Yes?” 

“Thanks.” 

“Anytime babe.” 

“You can’t just say–” Keith spluttered, unsuccessful in an attempt to pull back. 

“Too much?” Lance said, grinning like a cat. “Sorry sweetheart.” 

A dormant, rational part of Keith may have reconciled Lance’s teasing as a trick to distract him as he was hauled upright. Keith was too flustered to acknowledge such possibilities, protests growing weaker as they passed hallways. He was tired, incredibly tired, but Lance kept prodding him with increasingly ridiculous pet names. 

“You are never calling me that.” Keith slurred at the lift doors swished open. “Ever.” 

“Whatever you say cariño”

“I don’t know what that means.” 

Shiro and Allura greeted them distractedly, running a scan and returning to screens. Pidge, Hunk and Coran were already sealed in pods, peacefully oblivious to the hushed conversations. Quiet, like they might disturb them.

“Lance, help Keith into a suit. No bandages in the pod.” 

Keith considered being put out over the brush off, but worry on Shiro’s face put a hold on his annoyance. 

Unwrapping bandages was unpleasant, Lance peeling strips of material from his wrists was well within Keith’s range of awareness. Felt horrible, Lance forbade him from watching. Keith ignored Lance’s attempt at eye spy, staring at their leaders. Shiro and Allura were so serious in their corner Lance resorted to calling him Mullet. 

“Mhm?” 

“I’m cutting your shirt off. I didn’t want to startle you.” 

“Oh. It has buttons.”

Lance snorted. “Yes, I am aware, thank you. I don’t want to move your arm more than I have.” 

Keith watched him, shaking his head when Lance planted a hand over Keith’s wandering eyes. It didn’t work. Keith kept glancing over; Team Voltron’s leaders were too sober to dismiss.

“We’ll be okay, right?”

“Of course.” 

Lance was as shit a liar as Keith, worrying the corner of his lip. Keith swallowed hard as Lance tossed another scrap of fabric to the floor, deft fingers avoiding the impressive bruising mottling Keith’s side. They made it to the Castle, this was supposed to be okay. He was supposed to be okay. 

“I don’t wanna die.” 

That got Lance’s attention, scissors hitting the ground with a slick clack. “You’re not dying! Just need to put you in a pod. Don’t be stupid.” Lance’s assurance rang hollow as he avoided Keith’s eyes. “Don’t talk like that. I didn’t fall out of a window and land in a fucking tree for this.” 

Keith wanted to laugh about the tree – he wasn’t sure if he believed it – but if he was dying there was something he absolutely had to say. What he couldn’t forgive himself for in the basement when Lance was the one gone. 

He studied Lance’s face, the little furrow between his eyebrows. He was between words, hands running along Keith’s bare shoulder as he freed the last bandage. Not how Keith imagined this conversation starting, but hey. All he had to do was find some words. How hard could it be? 

Harder than he anticipated as things started to blur. First it was just Lance, then Shiro helping with the weird suits they wore in the pods. Keith opened his mouth but he was airborne, lifted to the nearest Healing Pod. 

“Wait.” Keith clamped his working hand on the lip of the pod. “Lance.” 

Lance was there, hand over Keith’s. They spoke at the same time, Keith’s “I love you” running into Lance’s “I’m here.”

Lance’s eyebrows shot skyward. “You–” 

“Yes.” Fuck. Shiro and Allura had totally noticed – but if there was the slightest chance he wouldn’t be waking up Keith knew what he wanted his last words to be. “I love you.”

Lance was halfway to crying, pressed his lips to the back of Keith’s hand. 

“Love you too.” Lance whispered. Keith wasn’t sure Lance would let go, but Allura spoke and the other boy was pressing Keith’s hand back. “See you soon. Promise.” Lance looked wrecked; Keith couldn’t think of a time he loved anybody this much. The pod activated with a burst of mist. 

-

Keith had tumbled out of a Healing Pod before. He wouldn't say it was a regular occurrence, but Keith could admit to a potentially alarming frequency. Whichever, he knew what to expect. The first swallow of air, warmer than the clouds of releasing chemicals. Slick tiles under bare feet. A waiting pair of arms. 

To say tripping out of the Healing Pod and falling flat on his face was a shock would be an understatement. Not quite on his face, but it was a near thing. Keith brought an arm up at the last second, smacking elbow first off the steps. He cried out as the landing shot a line of pain from chest to shoulder.

Several seconds passed as Keith got his bearings. The room around him was empty. Keith searched around, listening. He couldn’t hear anybody. That was...unexpected.

Keith rolled over and took stock of his body. Nowhere was he openly bleeding, the angry red lines dashed along his wrists hadn’t scared yet and his ribs and shoulder ached. At least he could feel.

With his shaky legs, standing was a bit of a stretch; Keith was reduced to stumbling half steps as he checked on the other pods. Pidge and Hunk were slumbering; Coran’s pod empty. 

Paranoia was decorating a new apartment in Keith’s chest when the room shuddered. Not an engines-powering-up shudder, but a quake. The kind of underfoot jerk on the Bridge when the Castle was under attack. 

Keith’s eyes flicked to the intercom built into the wall. He wanted to be calm. If nobody was here, it was because they were busy. Somehow that wasn’t comforting. Keith scooted over to the door in fits and starts, with some bizarre red light/green light mentality between the distant laser impacts. 

His finger hovered over the button above his head. He could just ask. Check in with whoever was on the Bridge. Another voice to confirm he wasn’t alone in a burning Castle, dead in space and about to be boarded by Galra. He clicked the com. 

“Um, is anybody there?” Keith winced. He sounded like a child. His hand slid off the button and Keith was confident if anyone other than Team Voltron responded he would indulge his body and have the fucking heart attack. 

“Keith?” Allura’s surprise was palpable. “Are you alright?” 

“Yeah. Um, I’m fine. Are you guys...?” Another impact, the Castle quivered and Allura was talking, but not to him. 

“Shiro, there are three surrounding the main ship. I can stop the group behind them, but we can’t jump until Lance finishes his targets.” There was a pause where Keith thought she forgot about him. Which would be fine. If Lance was busy Lance was alive. “Keith, are you there?” 

“Yeah.” Keith replied, feeling a little foolish.

“Hold on for a few ticks – no Lance, Keith is fine – a little longer and we can fix – Lance he’s fine please focus – the pod might have malfunctioned – Lance, please.” 

“Is he okay?” The question tumbled out, unbidden as regret curled. 

“Yes Keith, Lance is – Lance, Keith is – FINE. Keith, I’m connecting you to Lance’s Lion.”

Food could have been cooked over the fire lit on Keith’s face, his cheeks burning at Allura’s impatience. This was pathetic. He was pathetic. “No, its okay. Sorry.”

“Talk to him before he abandons the mission and leaves Shiro to fight alone. That’s an order.” 

“Oh. Okay.” 

“KEITH. ARE YOU OKAY?” 

“Hey.” Keith said, heavy heart very light. “I’m okay.” 

“Thank fuck.” The bubbly sensation in his stomach was migrating to his head, Keith smiled at the empty room. “What are you doing out of the Healing Pods?”

“I don’t know. Just opened.” 

“I can’t believe you sometimes. You totally ruined my plans. I had plans.”

“Plans?” 

“Yes PLANS. It was gonna be perfect. I’ve been sleeping on the floor in there for DAYS. The floor is not comfortable.” 

Keith shifted, fixating on the cold tiles and not Lance sleeping on the steps. “It’s a little cold.” Keith admitted. 

“They were good plans too and– shit–” 

Keith sat up when Lance swore, then folded with a few curses of his own at his tender ribs. A beeping in the background of the feed grew louder. “Lance?” 

“Shiro I said I got it! Fuckin’ Galra and stupid ass Adrath. Everything’s fine Keith. Little crowded out here. Nothing we can’t handle.” 

“Stop talking to me!” Keith said, frustration snagging the collar of his concern. “Pay attention.” 

“I can multitask babe, it’s a talent. You know I’m very–” Another explosion rocked the Castle, Keith pressed a fist over his mouth to stifle a scream as Lance kept talking.

“God _damnit_. Anyways, as I was saying, before I was so rudely inter–” Another crash, and Lance seemed to snap. “ _For fucks sake_ DO YOU MIND? I AM TRYING TO TALK TO MY BOYFRIEND!” 

Boyfriend? An embarrassingly long time passed before Keith realized Lance was talking about him. So long, Lance grew concerned. 

“Keith? Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

Keith was having trouble unsticking his tongue from the roof of his mouth. Boyfriend? 

“I should have asked – I’m so bad at this – Keith? Are you there?” 

Keith responded a bit faintly; “Yeah. I’m here.”

“Can we, uh, would you be okay with–” For someone who never stopped talking, Lance was struggling to finish a sentence. It was kind of cute. “Can I be your – can we be boyfriends?” 

“That–” Now Keith was experiencing difficulty talking. God, they were a mess. “That would be nice.” 

The whoop Lance let out hurt Keith’s ears and Keith couldn’t care less, he was smiling so hard his face hurt. It was a good thing nobody else was in the room– 

“Alright you two. I need Lance to focus for a minute, Allura is opening a wormhole.”

Keith was never going to be able to look Shiro or Allura in the eye again. Ever. 

-

The Blue Lion Hangar was significantly further from the Healing Pod room than the command center. Somehow, Lance beat Allura to Keith. The doors hadn’t opened properly and Lance was worming his way through, chest plate scraping. 

Keith hadn’t moved from the panel by the door, Lance nearly fell on top of him in his haste.

“Keith,” Lance started, mouth working uselessly as he caught his breath. His hair was a sweaty mess, shoulder plate askew.

The intercom crackled, Keith jumped. “Paladins? Lance, did you reach Keith?” 

“Yeah,” Lance said, pounding the button and winking at Keith. “Right where we left him. Almost.” 

Lance landed next to Keith for a cursory check up, ghosting his hands over his wrists and shoulder, tutting at the not fully healed wounds; Keith blushed and answered all his questions. No, he wasn’t bleeding. No, he wasn’t in pain, but he was little sore. 

Allura heard everything over the open com, requested they come to the Bridge if possible. 

Despite Keith’s assurances Lance didn’t let Keith stand on his own, insisted on supporting Keith with a hand firmly around his waist all the way to the Bridge because it was his sacred duty as boyfriend. Keith focused on not melting into the floor every time Lance said boyfriend. 

They were in sight of the door when the Bridge was vacated by a coughing Allura, chased by a cloud of smoke and the smell of burnt plastic. 

“Not as bad as it looks!” Coran called, hurrying past with a fire suppressant as tall as him. “Nothing out of control. We were prepared!” The Altean turned to Allura, one foot in the door. “Nonessentials have been rerouted to engines and Healing Pods, weapon systems officially offline until we perform a hard reset.”

Keith was taken aback by the damage report, Allura already affirming and adding potential problems. Shiro, also unchanged from his armor, walked up and took pity on Keith’s startled expression; directing the younger paladins to the less on fire dining room. 

“Coran’s right,” Lance said, guiding an unblinking Keith to a seat. “We figured this was coming.” 

“What was coming?” Keith asked. He couldn’t relax his shoulders. The Bridge was literally on fire a few floors away and Lance was about as interested in it as he might be a bug. In fact, a bug would probably grab more attention if the screams the last time Lance found a spider in the shower were anything to go by. 

“Galra.” Lance supplied. “Turns out Naalika had more support than we thought and our ‘rescue methods’ didn’t go over great with government higher ups.” Lance started tugging at the straps of his armor. “Apparently blowing up buildings is a crime, even for Legendary Defenders.” 

If Lance was shooting for levity he fell short of the mark, smacking an arm guard on the table. 

“When Allura refused to hand over Shiro or me for a trial, they became less diplomatic. Then a security feed surfaced showing her fighting and well,” Lance shrugged. “With half of Voltron accused of ‘criminal activity’ and none of us showing up to court our disrespect for their justice system undermined any support we had.” 

The ache in Keith’s side couldn't outweigh a flash of white hot anger. “That’s bullshit. What about Naalika? Did they have anything to say about that?” 

“The ambassador was released on bail, some house arrest bullshit,” Lance said darkly. “With an indeterminate court date pending investigation.” 

Keith swore, fingers curling into a fist. 

“Shiro and Allura weren’t happy about it either,” Lance said. “It was pretty obvious Naalika was in contact with other parliament members when the warrant for our arrest was announced. Might have been their idea.” Lance ran a hand over his face. “Nothing but political bullshit since we got you all back, I swear.” 

“But,” Keith tripped over a hole in the story. “How do the Galra fit into this?”

“Well,” Lance smirked – opposite of Keith’s expectation. “Allura may or may not have offered the Adrath the choice between dropping all charges and gaining Voltron’s protection or destroying their space crafts, technological factories and science labs. Oh, and military facilities.”

Keith gaped. “She what.” 

“I guess they decided to take their chances with the Galra.” Lance waved a glove dismissively. “Wrong choice by the way. We totally smashed their shit before warping outta there. I was obliterating the last military installation when you called.”

In two seconds Keith’s already high level of respect for Allura upgraded from Competent Leader to Wrathful Overlord. “Damn. They can’t – they don’t have any ships?”

“Not a one.” Lance said, pleased as he sat to unbuckle the last of his armor. “Worst case scenario, the Galra provide ships, but that doesn’t really jam with Zarkons style. Otherwise Coran put it at 20-30 years to rebuild basic rocket boosters. Nothing that could stand against Voltron, and personally I’m confident we’ll have saved the galaxy by then.” 

Sitting back in his chair, Keith tried to absorb everything Lance had said, from what the Adrath did to the impact Voltron had on one planet.

Lance misinterpreted Keith’s stunned silence. “It's not overkill, if that’s what you’re thinking. Shiro had to talk Allura out of vaporizing the Parliament building after she saw what they did to you guys.” 

Keith was saved from formulating a reply when Shiro arrived. He tossed Keith clean pajamas, straight out of the dryer and fantastically toasty. Keith shuffled off to change in an adjacent room. He could have cried; he’d never been so thankful for a warm pair of sweats in his life. Wiggling into a tank top, Keith took a moment to think. 

Maybe he wouldn’t have said overkill, but Keith hadn’t considered Voltron’s power on this destructive scale before. Decades to rebuild and no military to defend against the Galra. 

Reaching to activate the door, Keith caught sight of the angry red marks on his wrist. Harsh angles, sharp memories on his pale skin. Pidge held by the throat, Hunk’s electrical burns in a moment of stop motion – suddenly, crippling the industry of a race of aliens who refused to imprison the one responsible didn’t seem like enough.

Returning to the dining room and seeing the weary expression on Shiro’s face, Keith couldn’t help but feel relief he hadn’t been conscious for the past however many days. Shiro honestly looked worse for wear, but it didn’t lessen the strength of the hug that left Keith’s eyes prickling. 

Lance reappeared wearing pajama bottoms and a yellow t-shirt far too large for him. Hunk-sized if Keith had to guess. Lance stood behind Keith as Shiro examined the marks on his wrists and shoulder more carefully.

The gashes were tender but closed, not at risk of splitting if Keith kept his hands to himself. The less serious cuts on his feet were completely healed; Keith had forgotten about them until Shiro brought it up. A scan of his ribs garnered similar results. No more cracks, minor bruising, didn’t warrant a second run in the Healing Pods. 

Not that they could have if they wanted to. Coran dropped by, explained how the Castle, when under stress, ejected Healing Pod occupants that weren’t facing serious injury to reroute power to the shields. 

This left Keith with ugly marks on his skin, roadmap of harmful intent Coran assured him would fade. Or scar. It depended on several factors the Altean began describing in vivid detail. Lance was quick to notice the blood draining from Keith’s face, squeezing Keith’s good shoulder and changing the subject.

“I still haven’t told him about the tree,” Lance interjected. “If you need to get back to Castle repair I’ll stay with Keith.” 

“Exceptional!” Coran leapt up. “That final blast almost ruptured the resonance infuser. Best be back to it!” 

Shiro stood as well. “Try to eat something if you can. There is a low level of inhibitors in your blood, they should dissipate after tonight.” He patted Keith as he passed. “Get some rest. Lance, call us if you need anything.” 

“Roger that.” Lance saluted, like an asshole. 

Shiro shook his head, looked back to Keith. “It’s good to see you up.”

Keith returned his tired smile. “Good to see you too.”

Then it was him and Lance. Lance, who was seated next to him and definitely staring. 

“What?” 

“What?” Lance pouted. “I can’t stare at my boyfriend? I thought we had something special.” 

“Uh- That’s– I guess–” Keith’s brain lost contact with his mouth. “I mean if you want–” 

Lance raised an eyebrow as Keith babbled. Keith, for reasons beyond him was seized with the urge to explain himself without the faintest idea how or what he was explaining. “I don’t want you to think you’re not special– you’re you.” He was way off track now, Keith knew it, but without Shiro or Coran around what he had agreed to earlier hit a cord that hadn’t stopped resonating. “I think I knew what you meant when you were, were asking if– I mean–”

“Whoa, hey” Lance seemed to realize Keith wasn’t about to finish a sentence on his own, hand landing lightly on Keith’s shoulder. “Rhetorical question. I swear.”

Keith deflated, leaning into Lance’s touch guiltily as Lance ran his hand up Keith’s neck, thumb brushing behind his ear. 

“This is a stress free relationship,” Lance said. “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. I tease because I love you.” 

Keith’s eyes widened. A part of him – well, most of him – wasn’t sure Lance would acknowledge Keith’s panicked declaration of love when he thought he was dying. He meant it, but that didn’t mean Lance wasn’t just being nice in Keith’s presumed final moments.

“You do–” Lance braced to pull away at Keith’s surprise. “How much do you remember from–?” 

Keith caught Lance’s hand, flushing. “I remember. I love you too.” 

Lance almost choked on a nervous laugh. “Oh thank god. That was about to go horribly wrong.” 

“No, you’re good.” Keith said with a small smile. Flustered Lance was cute. The way blue eyes danced around, how he bit the over worried corner of his chapped lips. His boyfriend was cute.

Boyfriend. Keith wasn’t exactly sure what it entailed but for once excited eclipsed anxious.

“Okay, okay,” Lance repeated. “Just – I’m gonna get better at the not assuming stuff. That’s not cool of me. Need to ask. Right.” He spoke with a distracted air, holding Keith’s hand tighter. “That – this is okay?” 

“Yeah.” Keith squeezed his fingers. Cute might not cut it. Maybe adorable.

“You’ll tell me if I do something you’re not comfortable with? Or is it better if I ask? No. That was dumb,” Lance corrected, shaking his head. “I’ll ask before. Duh.” As if it was the most obvious thing in the universe. 

The feeling in Keith’s chest had nothing to do with nerves. Sure, Lance’s sister was ace, but hearing Lance correct himself was a different story, an unheard of reality. One Keith never imagined was anything but a pipe dream for somebody like him. 

Which his stupid, useless body interpreted as a viable reason to start bawling. The moment tears started sliding down his face Lance’s hands were fluttering; asking if he could hug him. Which made Keith cry harder, but allowed him to crumple unceremoniously into Lance’s arms. 

Fuck Keith was tired of crying. Didn’t stop him from burying his face in the soft material of the shirt Lance stole or holding the other boy with bruising force. A full minute passed before Keith noticed Lance had started crying too. The shoulder Keith’s forehead was resting on was shaking, Lance’s chest hitching with poorly suppressed sobs. Keith tried to move back, Lance gripped him tighter. 

“I thought I lost you. All of you.” Lance choked out. “We couldn’t find you and I didn’t know if you were alive or if they killed you.” He cut off and Keith could feel him trembling. “I thought I was alone.” 

The last two days from Lance’s perspective sank in. The Adrath attempted to kill him, all the paladins might have been targets of assassination. For all Lance knew, he’d left the rest of them dead back at the hotel. Keith felt heartsick. 

“I’m sorry Lance. I’m so, so sorry.” Keith did his best to console him as Lance fell apart.

They huddled together for a while, until Lance’s sniffing was under control. After, when he was grabbing lunch, Lance tried to be embarrassed. Keith wasn’t having it. To the point where Keith confiscated his plate until Lance pulled him into another, less tearful hug. 

Lance devoured his food goo, regaining his goofy teasing as he regaled Keith with the events following his defenestration.

Keith rolled his eyes over Lance’s vocabulary, sighed at the overblown tale of landing in a tree, the drama of his harrowing trek through the city, and fell a little bit more in love every minute. 

Lance was ridiculous – though the image of Shiro hotwiring a shuttle was a good one – hyperbolic, and self aggrandizing as ever. He was Lance, and watching him create a model of city streets in Keith’s uneaten space goo, Keith concluded Lance was far from perfect. But shit he loved this boy. 

Filling Keith in lasted for what remained of the afternoon. Lance bullied Keith into admitting he needed sleep following an impressive series of yawns. Keith relented, on the condition they check on Hunk and Pidge first; Lance threw their plates in the sink and led the way. 

“We are not sleeping in there,” Lance said. “You need rest in an actual bed.” 

“Didn’t stop you,” Keith pointed out. 

Lance threw an unimpressed look over his shoulder. “Babe. That was different and you know it.” 

Keith was too busy untying his tongue over how casually Lance called him names to respond, and Lance was doing it on purpose, if the smirk was anything to go by. Keith sighed and scratched the back of his head so he had something to do with his hands.

They were walking in a moments comfortable silence when Keith heard someone talking. 

“Takashi, this isn’t your fault.” 

Lance stopped dead at the intersection before the Healing Pods and Keith bumped into him. Allura’s voice had floated around the corner, gentle in a way Keith wasn’t familiar with, and didn’t think he should be. 

“Coran was taken," Allura continued. "We would have been too if Lance hadn’t returned to the Event Hall.”

“Exactly. We all would be rotting in a basement if a teenager wasn’t lucky enough to be kicked out a window. I’m supposed to prevent situations like this.” 

Lance stiffened at the ‘teenager’ comment, Keith grabbed the back of his shirt. This wasn’t the kind of conversation he wanted to walk in on.

“Being angry won’t solve anything.” 

“I’m not angry.”

“Clearly. That’s why you’ve been scowling all afternoon and quarreling with Coran when he has a suggestion.” Allura sounded as irritated as Voltron’s Leader. “There is a place for anger. I would ask you leave it for combat.” 

“This isn’t me angry.” Shiro said sharply, but lost his edge instantly. “I’m trying to make sense of this.” 

Allura wasn’t placated. “Oh? That’s what it is? What are you making sense of by glaring a hole in the wall all afternoon?”

“I almost lost them.” Shiro said stiffly. “I know we risk our lives every time we leave on missions but – they were tortured. Keith didn’t even recognize me. Pidge’s wrist isn’t a clean break. Hunk has electricity burns all the way down his back. If we hadn’t found them–”

“We did.”

“But–”

“Hush.” 

Keith wanted out of the conversation back when Allura was tearing Shiro a new one. As silence spread, Keith realized he and Lance had no way of escaping without footsteps betraying them. 

“You’re correct. You take risks every day, risks the five of you choose to take. You cannot protect them from everything Takashi. You have to trust them.” 

“I’m trying.”

“And that’s all I can ask.” 

“All you can ask?” Keith could imagine the smile Shiro quirked at the Princess. He tried not to gag. “You never ask. You tell.”

“Are you saying you find that displeasing?” 

“Have I ever?”

“There is a first time for everything.” 

“Try me.”

“Marry me.” 

If Keith wasn’t latched onto Lance’s shirt, Lance would have fallen as he reeled back. Keith contained his own flinch badly. They needed to get out of here. Now. Shiro and Allura carried on, oblivious to the increasingly disturbed audience trapped around the corner. 

“You had to say it first.” Shiro said, amused.

“I researched earth customs. They are not so different from Altean weddings. We have bracelets, but if you want rings I’m hardly opposed.”

“Anything is perfect. Anything to show I’m yours.” 

“Even though you already bought a ring?” 

Shiro laughed. “I thought I was being subtle.” 

“You should have hidden the box better.” 

“That’s what I get for letting you in my room.” 

“That not all you get.” 

Nope. Nope, nope nope. Keith backpedaled, throwing himself at the open hallway, not caring if they heard his retreat. Not now, not ever did Keith want to hear these things. Surely if they were talking like that Pidge and Hunk were out of immediate danger. They could come back tomorrow. 

Lance grabbed his hand and led him racing down the halls. Once they had put a decent amount of distance between them and the Healing Pods Keith slowed, holding his side. 

“Oh my God. I think I’m actually traumatized.” Lance said.

Keith rubbed his eyes. “I want to pour bleach on my brain.” 

“She’s so much older than him.”

“That’s what you came away from this situation with?”

“When did he get a ring?” Lance said, frowning. “None of us have money.” 

“You don’t think he stole it?” 

When their matching horrified expressions met they couldn’t hold it. Keith cracked first, giggle starting low in the back of his throat. This was beyond ridiculous. He knew Shiro was lost on Allura, but the jump from ‘sweethearts’ to ‘married’ was horrifying and hilarious. Hopeless romantics, the two of them. Blackmail material for life. 

“We can never tell anyone.” 

“Are you kidding me?” Lance said. “Hunk will lose his mind! And Pidge – for once I know something they don’t. We have to record their reaction.” He waved a hand, “no, I don’t know how. But this is important. We can figure it out.” 

With Lance’s confidence as a backbone, Keith believed they would. As they walked, the hallways shifted to recognizable paladin sleeping quarters. Keith’s heart rate, elevated from their stumbling escape couldn’t decide between racing or dropping with his stomach at the sight of his uninviting grey room. 

“Ugh. I could sleep for a year.” Lance said, hitting the release on his door. Lance had been by Keith’s side since he sprinted into the Healing Pod room. Watching him disappear into his room without a goodnight – that couldn’t be right. Keith hovered in the hallway, undecided. Did he follow Lance? He might need time to himself. 

“What’re you doing?” Lance head poked out. “Get in here. The hall’s freezing.” 

Keith’s eyes widened. So much for his theory. “Oh.” 

“Yeah, ‘Oh’.” Lance rolled his eyes. “If you think I’m letting you outta my sight for the next month you have another thing coming.” 

Keith shuffled after him, peeking inside. He’d never been in another paladin’s room, regardless of Pidge’s open invitation. 

“Make yourself at home,” Lance said. “Just a sec, I have to wash my face or I’m breaking out and you don’t want to see that.” 

Keith hesitantly let his feet carry him a few steps further among the organized piles, beside drawings stuck to the wall with sticky tape Keith was pretty sure Pidge engineered and lost months ago. Lance was utilizing the stuff; had made a mission of covering all the available wall space in a mishmash collage.

Many of the sketches were recognizable, planets and ships Team Voltron encountered traced in greens and blues on the translucent film that passed for Altean paper. A few were scribbles, cartoons of alien species and space battles featuring the Lions – especially Blue – saving the day. Others showcased an impressive attention to detail, shaded canyons and spaceports. Keith followed the paper trail to the dresser, stepping around neat piles of clothes, the inverse of Keith’s room: visible carpet and covered walls.

Keith paused over the sketches on the dresser top, familiar faces staring back at him. Allura on the Bridge, Hunk baking, Pidge waving a wrench threateningly and – Keith’s fingers stilled – one of him. An action shot, mid lunge at a training gladiator. Keith pushed around the pages, discovered the pile was predominantly him. The pang of guilt Keith felt for disturbing Lance’s art did nothing to remove the smile tugging at his lips.

His jostling knocked something small free, fluttering to the ground. Keith quickly retrieved it, texture of the polaroid picture unexpected. There was a crease down the middle, gently unfolding it Keith recognized family members Lance visualized during training. None of them were posing, two of the photo’s occupants actively avoiding the camera, everyone caught mid-laugh. Lance was smack in the middle of his crushing family, top of his head cut off by the framing.

“That’s not a great photo.” Keith jumped. Lance bumped his shoulder, nose scrunching. “Mila wanted a camera for her birthday. Eight year olds aren’t known for stellar photography skills.”

“I like it,” Keith said, putting it back. “You look happy.” 

Lance shrugged. “I’m always hap–” He cut off in the act of adjusting the photo, coloring red and slamming his hand over the sketches of Keith. “You were not supposed to see that.”

Keith stifled his smile, bubbly feeling from that morning back. “They’re good. I didn’t know you could draw.”

“I can’t.” Lance said, hastily shuffling the pile and stuffing them in a drawer. “Figments of your imagination. You saw nothing.”

Keith could read the lines of tension in Lance’s posture as the other boy fiddled with the drawer handle, didn’t want them there because of him. “I don’t mind. They’re nice. I didn’t really think you noticed me like that before last week.”

Lance scoffed. “How could I not notice you.” 

Lance’s ability to turn tables with a single comment baffled him as Keith ricocheted from ‘empathize with boyfriend’ to ‘find furniture to crawl under immediately’. Keith buried his face behind hands with a groan. 

“You’re too easy,” Lance teased lightly, nudging him again. 

“Not fair.” 

“What can I say, babe? I have some time to make up for.” 

Aurg. Keith faced the wall, hiding a helpless laugh. Lance was infuriating. 

“You loooooove me.” 

“Don’t know why.” Keith muttered. A blatant lie and they both knew it. Keith could hardly deal with Lance’s unchecked affection and the rabid butterflies rampaging in his stomach. 

“Okay, okay I’ll stop.” Lance relented, “I don’t want you to self combust.” Keith privately hoped Lance didn’t know how close to the mark he was, because self combustion was definitely a legitimate option at this point. “Come on. I know you’re tired.” 

Keith sighed and abandoned his attempt to disappear into the wall. Lance wasn’t wrong. Fatigue had dripped down to Keith’s core, side and shoulder worsening the longer he stood.

Lance landed on the bed with a fwump, was pulling his top off. 

Keith tensed, throat tight. Time to go. “I guess – I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

“Tomorrow?” Lance’s arms were halfway over his head, awkwardly tangled in the shirt. “You don’t want to stay?” 

Lance said it like Keith staying was the logical, normal conclusion a sane person would reach. “Uh,” Keith’s lungs canceled their lease without notice. “You, uh, you,” the last word came out as a gasp. 

“Hey,” Lance was on his feet, shirt slipping back down as he hurried over, stopping at the last second to leave a little space between them. “What’s happening?”

Keith’s stupid idiot anxiety was happening and Keith couldn’t articulate that without sounding selfish and ungrateful. He knew Lance slept with his shirt off, saw him in the kitchen half dressed programming coffee substitutes at odd hours. Saw and ran in the other direction. No matter how badly Keith wanted to curl up next to Lance in the too small bed, find out how well he might fit in the taller boy’s arms and listen to his heart beat – there was no way he could do that pressed against bare skin. Not yet. 

“You don’t have to stay,” Lance amended quickly. “Totally up to you. I just, you didn’t mind when– if you don’t mind. I’m here for you.” 

Lance was so damn honest, careful and waiting right within arms reach. Keith wanted to scream. He didn’t deserve this if he couldn’t explain himself.

“Talk to me?” Lance’s voice was almost even, almost calm. “Can I help?” Lance was trying, fuck, Keith had to try too for whatever it was worth.

“S’dumb.” Keith mumbled. 

“How about you let me be the judge of that? I think I have more experience in that department.”

The joke was tinged with worry. Keith did not deserve this boy. “I want to, to stay but–” Keith took a steadying breath. “Can you leave your shirt on?”

“Fuck – of course,” Lance said, smacking himself. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

Well shit. Problem solved, crisis averted. Keith put an end to Lance’s self berating by walking into Lance and planting his face in the other boy’s chest in lieu of stringing a meaningful sentence together.

Lance quieted. “Hug?” 

One request had drained Keith’s last reserve of energy. All he wanted was Lance’s arms around him. Keith spoke into Lance’s shirt, eyes tight shut. “Please.”

Lance complied with bone crushing intensity; they stood until Keith’s knees gave out. Lance caught him, grousing at Keith for not saying anything as he planted him on the bed and hit the lights. 

Keith grumbled back, squirming to find a better spot with his head pillowed on Lance’s chest, content. 

-

Keith didn’t mean to wake Lance, but it was hard to hyperventilate quietly. Curled on his side under the blankets, Keith couldn’t shake the sick feeling settled in his gut, couldn’t remember what he dreamed about beyond the smell of blood and sweat and in the dark that was rapidly becoming his world.

His skin didn’t feel like it fit right. Keith pinched at the red patches on his wrists. Dark stripes on his arms looked like ribbons or random swipes of a paint brush. Each had raised edges that could easily be peeled back. Keith’s fingernails fit perfectly in the ridges. 

“Babe? You okay?” Lance’s voice was rough with sleep.

Nope. Not in the least. Keith couldn’t get that out, managed an embarrassing whimper that had Lance quickly shifting so they were face to face.

“Shhh, you’re safe.” Intentionally or not Lance found the hand Keith had poised to scratch, interlacing their fingers. “Deep breaths.”

Keith held tight and grounded himself in Lance's assurances. 

“I’m gonna help you sit up, okay?”

Lance hooked his hands under Keith’s armpits, situating his back to the wall. He sat close as their eyes adjusted to the dark, occasionally brushing away tears slipping down Keith’s cheeks. 

“Does it hurt?” Lance asked as Keith pressed his wrists into his thighs.

“No....just, just looks wrong.” 

“Can I see?”

Keith shook his head sharply. The skin was probably inflamed from where he’d been pinching. Lance didn’t need to see that. Nobody did. 

“That’s okay. Hold on, I have an idea.” The idea couldn’t be far; Lance didn’t let go of Keith as his free hand groped for something on the floor. “Ha.”

Keith was besieged by material as Lance swept a coat around Keith’s shoulders. “You are shorter than me,” Lance murmured as he guided Keith’s shaking hands into the arms of his jacket. “So... aha! Perfect.”

Keith examined the too long sleeves engulfing his hands, fingertips poking out of the green cuffs. 

“How’s that?” 

“Better.” Keith admitted, swallowing around the lump lodging in his throat. It was better. If he didn’t have to stare, couldn’t reach the trailing scratches, it was better. “Th-thanks.”

“Doofus.” Lance said, catching Keith’s hands, hidden by the jacket’s sleeves. “You can wake me up if you aren’t feeling good. Or whenever you want, really.” 

“Thought you needed beauty sleep.” Keith said quietly. 

Lance cocked an eyebrow. “I am not pretty enough for you?”

“Nah,” Keith said, feeling safe and warm and sleep drunk and maybe a little bit daring wrapped up in Lance’s jacket. “You’re the most beautiful boy I’ve ever met.” A shy smile spread across Keith’s face as Lance was struck dumb. 

“I – good.” Lance said, stumbling. “You’re pretty too.” 

It was so far removed from any of his compliments Keith shook his head. “I win.”

“It’s not a contest!” 

Keith whapped Lance with an overlarge cuff. “Pretty rich coming from you.”

“Guess I’ll have to up my game.” 

Keith’s muscles hadn’t fully relaxed, and he knew Lance could hear how congested his nose was, but as far as panic attacks went it wasn’t the worst. “I love you.” Keith said, quiet again, looking down. 

Lance pressed closer until Keith looked up. “I love you too. You know that, right?”

Lance sounded concerned, blue eyes worried; Keith was grateful Lance was close enough that he didn’t have to lean far to drop his head on the other boy’s shoulder. “Yeah. I think so. I’m...working on it.”

“Hrmph. Good.” Lance ran a hand up the back of Keith’s neck, fingers brushing his hair as Keith hummed. “Sleep?” 

“Sleep.” Keith agreed, startling Lance by pushing him over and flopping on top of him. 

Lance frowned at the manhandling. “Bossy.”

“You love it.” 

Lance grunted noncommittally, running a hand through Keith’s hair. “Go to sleep.”

“You first.” 

“Darling, please.”

“Idiot. Stop calling me that.” 

“I’ll think of something better than.” Keith waited as Lance hemmed and hawed. “I got it! Can't live without you, sweetcheeks.” 

Keith retaliated with a pillow. “SLEEP.” 

Muffled laughter came from under the pillow as Lance squirmed. “I refuse! I have to have the last word. Its part of who I am.”

Keith redoubled his efforts, retreating only when Lance threatened to find out if he was ticklish. There was something to be said for picking battles, Keith rationalized, as he burrowed into his boyfriend’s side, wrapped in a green jacket. They fell asleep to the sound of each other breathing, soft and slow. 

-

At Lance’s prodding – on Shiro’s instruction, Keith was sure – Keith wasn’t allowed to hide in bed all day. Unfortunately, outside of Lance’s room Keith was inundated by the adults poorly veiled concern and scientific curiosity when he didn’t recover overnight. Having a conscious member of the team with the same drug circulating his blood made him the best source of data for working out a treatment. To Keith’s irritation, with the Castle under repair there weren’t many places to hide. 

Their intentions were good, but Keith quickly tired of answering detailed questions. Allura waiting outside the bathroom door when he couldn’t keep lunch down for the second day in a row was nearly the last straw. Lance rescued him in a gutsy move, swiping the scanner from the Princess with promises to send her the results.

That worked for the majority of the day. Keith passed on dinner, spent the evening curled next to Lance on the couch. The other boy found a way to dim the lighting to alleviate the worst of Keith’s headache as Lance’s read aloud from a data pad.

Keith lost track of the story in favor of dozing with his head on Lance’s shoulder when Allura cleared her throat. “Excuse me Lance, could I speak with Keith for a moment?” 

“S’okay.” Keith said. Lance’s stiffening posture was poised to protest, Keith squeezed his boyfriend’s hand as he sat up. The Princess and Shiro blinked into focus. “What do you need to know?” Ugh, he sounded horrible. Keith coughed into his sleeve. 

“We have nearly finished the profile to diagnose Pidge and Hunk.” She explained as his coughing fit subsided, Lance rubbing circles on his back. “To be sure we have everything could you provide a full list of what you are experiencing? Anything we might have missed?”

“I can.” Lance said. He glanced at Keith. “If that’s okay?” 

Keith rubbed his eyes, hazy from his nap. Why not. 

Lance interpreted Keith’s silence a permission to start listing symptoms: sensitivity to light and noise, less appetite, vomiting, insomnia and panic attacks. 

Keith was more awake now, could measure the inches his heart sank at the last “symptom”. Lance believed he was helping, but he didn’t know what he was talking about. This was the last conversation Keith wanted to have with any of them – epically without Pidge – but it was Pidge and Hunk at stake if he didn’t own up. He had to interrupt before his own failure to be a normal, chemically balanced human put others at risk. 

And fast. Shiro and Allura had already nodded their thanks to Lance and were moving to leave. 

“That’s not, um,” Keith started, “not right.” 

“What?” Lance’s thumb, tracing circles on the back of Keith’s hand, stilled. “Did I miss something?” 

Keith swallowed. “Panic attacks might not be, be,” Shit, his throat was closing up now, body ready to thrown down a demonstration as proof. As if this wasn’t humiliating enough. “I don’t think that’s a side effect.” 

“Why do you say that?” Allura asked gently. 

Keith pulled his hand from Lance’s loose fingers, rubbing the back of his neck. If he told them, would they want him on the team? What if this was it? He didn’t have to tell them. What sort of paladin had panic attacks? 

Keith glanced at his leaders waiting faces. He didn’t dare look at Lance. It was too late, turning back now would make the questions worse. 

“I’ve had panic attacks since...for a while.” 

There was no awkward silence or accusation, Allura didn’t miss a beat. “Often?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Recently? How regularly?” 

Lance had stiffened next to him, Keith directed his everything at Allura. The Altean was reactivating her screen with the same clinical detachment as her questions. As if this was normal and not completely unacceptable for a supposed defender of the universe. 

“Since I was 14,” Keith said, fighting the need to tuck his chin to his chest and physically duck away from the questions. “Maybe two, three times a week? If it’s bad.” 

“Same severity?” 

“About the same, but also, also,” Keith was running out of steam, dropping to a hoarse whisper, “worse.”

Allura didn’t seem to notice, tapping on the screen. “Have you received treatment in the past?” 

“I used to have drugs,” Oh god drugs sounded so bad, illegal kind of bad. “-medication,” Keith corrected. They weren’t prescribed, but the rattling pill case of Xanax he lifted from a foster parent’s glove box had been a few months’ glorious relief – while they lasted. He rationed them out, strictly read the WebMD page on dangers of dependence and hated his weakness every single time he dug chalky pills from the bottom of his bag. “I don’t really know what was in them.” 

“What symptoms did they treat?” 

That was...difficult to explain. Keith couldn’t say he understood what they did beyond letting him breathe and quieting all the nonsense gaining ground in the back of his mind. The same voices telling him this was a bad idea, this was the end, this was what he deserved. Keith floundered, searching for the least insane sounding description. 

“Just. Makes things less...less intense. I have more control.” Keith winced, giving in and crossing his arms, ducking his head. Shit. An out of control paladin was the last thing Allura needed. “S’hard to explain.” 

“Anything else we should know?” Allura asked. 

Keith shook his head, no longer trusting his voice. 

“I’ll add it to the profile. This could help considerably. Shiro, are you familiar with earth medications?”

“A little.” Shiro said. “Shouldn’t be a problem.” 

“Perfect.” Allura nodded. “That’s all then. Thank you Keith, we’ll keep you two updated.” 

Disbelief lifted the band wrapped around Keith’s throat. “That’s – that’s it? You’re not mad?”

Allura had closed her device, turned back from the door. “About what?” 

“I didn’t tell anybody.” Keith blurted. “I’m a liability in a fight.” 

“I’ve never seen this impact your performance, fighting or otherwise. I only wish you told us sooner. I’m sure we can engineer a similar medication to the kind you used on earth.”

“I’m not in trouble?” 

“Not in the least.” No pity, no judgment. “I’m impressed you’ve been managing panic attacks and working at the same time. You’re very strong.” 

Keith couldn’t hear a lie in her voice. Not once had he viewed panic attacks as anything but a flaw, indication he was less, couldn’t be normal if he tried. Keith wasn’t sure what to do with her praise. He ended up staring blankly. 

“This shouldn’t take long. Please take care of yourself – I’ll talk with Coran about manufacturing a compound to use outside of the Healing Pods, something portable. If you don’t mind?” 

Keith forgot to nod. With a small smile, Allura put a hand on Shiro and led him out of the room, leaving a stunned Keith on the couch with his boyfriend. 

Keith opened his mouth to speak. Lance beat him to it. 

“Can I hug you?” 

Nodding was back on the table, Keith had barely done so when Lance wrapped him in his arms. Keith let out a shaky breath, tucking his face in the crook of Lance’s neck. Days of this and doubt still ran its course when Lance offered hugs so freely. 

“Hug me back loser, I’m trying to comfort you.” 

The first time Lance said that Keith was reduced to a stuttering mess, now he knew better. He put his arms around Lance’s waist, gradually pulling him as close as possible. So he needed reminders. Lance wasn’t irritated, told him so repeatedly. Keith was working on it and right now, that was what mattered. 

-

They hadn’t left the couch when Allura called them down. Gathered in the Healing Pod room, she explained the physical damage – broken bones, burns – had effectively been treated two days ago. Remaining in stasis was an automated response to the high level of unidentified inhibitors present in Pidge and Hunk’s system.

Since the Altean version of the antidote worked on Coran, it was firmly an issue of alien physiology versus human the pods couldn’t work out. The solution removed stasis from the equation; over the past two days the drug had been slowly filtering out of Keith’s system, but remained a constant for Pidge and Hunk. Coran mentioned REM sleep and a few other terms Keith heard of at some point on TV but never bothered to define.

Shiro took over from Coran and summarized to Keith and Lance’s uncomprehending expressions.

“No amount of time in the pods will remove the inhibitors from their systems. We’re going to release them.”

“Now?” Keith asked, hopeful. The last two days had been dishearteningly quiet. 

“Yes,” Allura said. “Keep in mind, they will likely be experiencing similar symptoms.”

“You might want to dim the lights,” Lance suggested. Keith nodded quickly. The amount of white in the room was already digging behind his eyes.

Shiro did so, and there was no reason to wait. Keith and Lance took up positions to save the green and yellow paladins from falling.

Pidge tumbled, like they all did, with a dazed half step right out of the pod into Keith’s arms. Keith wondered if there hadn’t been a design flaw somewhere, remembering the sting of his wrist when he hit the steps. Could no one see the obvious danger here? 

Keith was there to catch them, guiding Pidge’s narrow shoulders as they face planted into his chest. 

“Keith?” 

“Hey Pidge.” Keith made sure they could hold their own weight before ruffling Pidge’s hair, knowing this was his one chance to get away with it. 

As predicted, the punch Pidge landed was hardly a tap. “Fuck you.”

Keith laughed and lost his hold to a tearful Coran, who had a newly fabricated pair of glasses in hand.

From there the group devolved into an emotional train wreck. Keith didn’t know who started crying first, but the combination of relief and limited control three of the five paladins had over their emotions ran a perfect storm. Everyone was awake and alive and in the same place. As long as that was his reality, Keith didn’t mind being sucked into weepy hugs. 

Shiro eventually managed to corral the lot of them upstairs, throwing pajamas in Pidge and Hunk’s direction. They congregated back on the couch. Allura was waiting to pass out a few pills nobody questioned and they fell into quiet conversation. Shiro filled in Pidge and Hunk on the Adrath/Galra situation, the state of the Castle, what to expect from the drugs for the rest of the week. 

For once none of the paladins had questions. Shiro and Allura excused themselves and left them alone as the paladins sprawled on the couch into far less dignified positions. 

“Since we’re all alive I think we count this one as a win.” Lance said, just out of Keith’s line of sight behind Hunk. Keith was contently using Hunk as a backrest, Pidge kicked their legs out and was utilizing Keith’s stomach as a cushion for their head. 

“Whoo. Go us.” Hunk’s cheer was quiet, but got Lance giggling. Keith meant to contribute nothing more than a dry chuckle, but his stomach bouncing under Pidge sent the smallest paladin into a fit sniggering. The whole group dissolved into a mess of exhausted laughter. 

“But it's over now, right?” Hunk said. “No more wacky news?” 

“There better not be,” Keith grumbled. Something sparked. “Although...” 

“If this has anything to do with you and Lance obviously being in a relationship, I want no part of it,” Pidge said with utter severity.

“First of all, rude. Be nice to my boyfriend.” Lance piped up as Keith poked Pidge in the side, glaring. “Second of all, it does have to do with relationships, just not ours.”

“Oh. Did Shiro propose while we were in the pods?” 

Keith frowned. Lance wasn’t the only one who had been proud to know something good for once. “How could you possibly know about that?” 

“Who do you think got the ring?” 

“Wait – wait oh my God, did Shiro actually propose?” Hunk said, almost standing to the sudden irate exclamations of the piled paladins. 

“Not quite,” Keith said. “Allura beat him to it.” 

“They did this in front of you.” Pidge countered, skepticism thick. 

Lance offered an explanation after an incriminating pause. “We may have been around the corner.” 

Hunk was beside himself as Pidge snorted, rolling their eyes. “You realize,” Pidge said, “by telling Hunk, we have to confront them now. There are no secrets with Hunk.” 

“None at all,” Hunk agreed proudly. “This is gonna be the best.”

Hunk managed to carry on alone for several minutes without any prompting until Lance mused it would be cool to find a planet for the whole thing instead of on the Bridge. Keith agreed, throwing out Shiro really liked the outdoors. This triggered an impromptu planning session in frightening detail. It lasted until they were hoarse, falling to whispers when the lights dimmed. Voices faded in and out, silly comments and teasing broken by yawns, lapsing into quiet as time passed. 

Shiro walked in at some point, surveying the pile of uncoordinated limbs on the couch. "Guys. You’re falling asleep. It might be time for bed"

Keith pondered this as Hunk groaned. If his nightmares were anything to go by, he shuddered to think what it would be like for Pidge or Hunk to wake up alone. Keith had Lance, with the same ferocious protective streak he felt when the other boy admitted he was struggling too. 

The lights were already dimmed, lessening the headaches and making eyelids heavy. Keith didn’t want to move. "Can’t we sleep out here?"

Allura, never far from Shiro, took one look at the four of them huddled protectively around each other and clapped her hands together. "Yes, that is an excellent idea. All of you stay put, I’m sure Coran can find some blankets." 

Vague surprised murmuring emanated from the couch, none in protest. Pidge blinked sleepily a few times and burrowed deeper into Keith. Keith, for his part, wasn't even mad his boyfriend was being largely hogged by Hunk. He was a little stupefied when Shiro didn't leave after dropping off pillows, rearranged his team so Lance wasn't in danger of falling off. 

Allura caught him in the act, Keith was awake enough to see her shove Shiro on his ass and curl up in his lap when their leader went to stand. Served him right. Coran had already taken up residence at the far end with his own supply of pillows. 

Keith cast around, doing a quick headcount. Shiro, Allura, Coran, Pidge, Hunk and Lance. Pressed together and squishing him from every angle. He was surrounded, in the complete and total sense of the word, by other people. 

Not people, Keith corrected slowly, looking for panic and finding none. 

Family. 

Lance grumbled in his sleep, rolling over in Hunk’s lap and throwing an arm across Keith’s chest, narrowly missing Pidge. Keith snorted, twisting until he had a hand on Lance back.

Family. And his adorable snoring boyfriend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As benevolent overlord I endeavored to strike a balance in the fluff/angst department. Are we happy now? 
> 
> The plus 1 is indulgent nonsense. Think anime beach episode. Shallura to the extreme. Sarah is behind me on this one, so not one worry. 
> 
> Thoughts? I did a good, yes?


	6. Beach

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Style changed a tad unconventionally, but that seems to be the defining nature of this fic. Nothing but fluffy nonsensical otp loving goodness lies ahead. 
> 
> For the record: This is the most disgustingly fluffy thing I’ve written in all my time, bar none. I hope y’all are proud.

If you know where to look, far out in the distant reaches of space, there is a collection of pictures and videos stored deep in the archives of a Castleship. Some are organized, some less so. Your best bet is to hit ‘chronological’ and muddle along.

The very first is a set of photos. Image1 is a very, very close up shot of narrowed brown eyes behind large circular frames, messy bangs obscuring one eye. The lighting isn’t great, improves slightly in the next three frames to reveal a teen with bedhead in a small room. They’re holding the viewfinder at arm's length with a futuristic screwdriver held between their teeth. The fifth and sixth show the rest of the bedroom by the illumination of a nightlight, walls covered in drawings at an angle only possible if the camera is hovering. By image seven, the teen is grinning, arms raised triumphant, and a skinny, tan boy in the bed behind has propped himself up on an elbow to survey their antics. 

The next is a clip, less than a minute labeled Video1_Testing. 

“Aaaaand that should do it!” a voice says confidently, audio levels jumping erratically. The bespectacled teen from the pictures blurs in and out of focus. “Lance, wake up Keith. I did it!” 

“I’m happy for you,” Lance murmurs, voice thick with sleep. “Wait – Rover’s recording now?” The haze is burning off as he sits up, peering at the camera. “We can do it tomorrow!” 

“Technically today,” The other corrects, poking a screen on the floor that glows green. “But yes, we can.” 

Another head pops up from the bed, dark hair standing in every direction, face lost to shadows. “Whassat?” 

“Pidge got Rover 2.0 working!”

“Huh?” Keith, presumably, hooks his chin over Lance’s shoulder and yawns enormously. His eyes are half lidded, he lazily drapes an arm over the other boy and gradually tightens his grip koala-style.

Lance laughs. “Go back to sleep babe. I’ll tell you in the morning.” Lance turns his head to press a kiss on Keith’s cheek. 

Keith blinks, nods uncomprehendingly and falls back out of the frame, taking Lance with him. Lance squawks; Pidge looks directly into the camera to preserve a look of utter, fatigued disapproval for future generations. 

“I should tell Hunk,” Pidge says. “You know where he went?” 

A muffled response comes from the bed. “Kitchen. Coran was finding him tea.”

“Good good,” Pidge nods, taps a finger on their lips. “Hm. Rover, you stay here. We don’t want Coran seeing you yet.” Pidge leans close, fingers reaching around the lens.

The video ends. 

-

‘Video2_Ambush’ starts in a hallway. The back of two heads are visible, peeking around the corner. Lance and another boy twice his size – it’s safe to assume this is the previously missing Hunk. They’re both in pajamas, shushing each other in turns. 

Lance turns. “Is it recording?”

“I think?” Keith’s voice is a bit puzzled. “Pidge already activated the cloaking device. I can’t see it.” A mullet swings into view, then back out. 

“Eh, it’ll be fine.” Lance assures. 

“Where are they?” Hunk is leaning around the corner but lets Lance pull him back.

“Remember, act natural.” Lance says, not addressing Hunk’s concerns. “It’ll be funnier that way.”

“Isn’t it weird if we walk in together?” Keith points out.

“That’s why we sent Pidge first, then us and then Hunk. I’m sorry buddy,” Lance says, reeling Hunk back from the corner for a third time. “You got no poker face.” 

“I can’t stand waiting–”

“Morning Shiro, Allura!” 

Pidge’s voice is nearly too faint to be caught by the speakers, made tinny by the distance. Hunk stiffens and Keith hurries across the frame, fingers drumming on his leg. Without speaking, Lance grabs Keith’s hand and heads around the corner with a wink to the camera, leaving Hunk alone. 

Hunk is muttering a countdown from 30 as the others exchange greetings out of sight. He makes it to 14 and visibly cracks, moving into the room with a final, furtive glance in the direction of the camera. 

The shot remains shoulder height, floating along behind Hunk. A dining area is revealed, long table, uninteresting grey walls. Keith and Lance are helping themselves to food, Pidge seated next to a woman with dark skin and bright hair. A tall man with broad shoulders picks his coffee mug from the cabinet. There are words on the side that can’t be made out with the videos resolution. #1 something. 

“Hey guys!” Hunk’s voice is too loud. 

“You’re all up early.” The last adult in the room says, a red head with a magnificent moustache.

“Oh, Coran, you know,” Hunk starts awkwardly, “happens. Thanks again for the tea last night.”

“Of course!” Coran puff out his chest. “Nothing quite like Jeeling for a case of the night shivers”. 

“Was there any left?” Pidge asks innocently. Coran heartily affirms and stands to fetch it, sufficiently distracted for the camera angle to swoop up and over the rest to settle in a corner of the ceiling.

From the new vantage point, Keith and Lance can be seen trading glances. Hunk heads for a food dispenser on the wall and has to turn around to grab the plate he forgot. Those uninvolved with the plot don’t seem to notice. 

“So Shiro, Allura,” Pidge says conversationally as Coran returns with the tea. “You two thinking an indoor or outdoor wedding?” 

Shiro, who has just taken a drink, nearly spits out his coffee. Allura’s head snaps up but she is partially obscured by her fiancé as he coughs. 

“Because Keith was thinking outdoors,” Pidge continues slyly while the camera shifts for a better view, capturing Allura’s steadily rising eyebrows and the terror in Shiro’s eyes. 

“There’s a planet with forests like Zion in the Altean database,” Keith interjects, not nailing causal half as well as Pidge. “You have to see it. Uninhabited, two quadrants over.”

“And I found the dress,” Lance blurts. “Well, a dress, there’s a bunch in storage to choose from. I have no idea why but they’re there.” 

“CAKE.” Hunk blows subtly out of the water. “What kind of cake do you want? If you want a cake?” 

The plan has fallen apart, they talk over each other and audio levels glitch as the recording attempts to compensate. 

Shiro and Allura remain seated in the eye of an excitable hurricane. Shiro has buried his face in his hands and jumps when Coran slaps him on the back, congratulating him. Allura sets her spoon down at a glacial pace, eyes darting around until she finds a tittering mouse by the door. The looks she sends is murderous. 

The cacophonous symphony dies down when Shiro stands, waving a hand. “I’m not sure what you all think you know–”

“Takashi.” Allura places a hand lightly on his arm. The camera zooms, focusing on the two of them. “It might be a little late for that.” 

Expressions tumble over Shiro’s face. Three of the five stages of grief rush by in a hurry. “But–” 

“We don’t have to.” 

The view zooms back out, revealing tense shoulders and uncertain faces. “We just– I thought it would be nice.” Keith says. “You shouldn’t have to keep this secret and we rarely do normal things and this would be– I mean–” 

Keith has been growing steadily redder. Lance cuts in, sheepish. “I’m sorry. Weddings are a big deal in my family and I was excited. We shouldn’t have ambushed you.” 

“Nonsense,” Allura brushes Lance off. “Your enthusiasm is...charming. Thank you. I’m not opposed to this, wedding was it?” There is nodding around the table, relief. 

“Shiro?” Hunk asks hesitantly. 

“I think I’m outnumbered.” Shiro says, bewildered. 

“But you want to?” Keith asks. During the pause worried looks make a repeat appearance. 

Shiro sighs, shakes his head, muttering, “This is not how I saw this morning going.” He gives a helpless laugh. “Yeah– yeah let’s do this.”

The table erupts into cheers, the questioning resumes, and the video ends.

-

There is another clip: Video3_LanceWhy.

“Today, we begin our hunt for the elusive Pidge.” Lance’s voice narrates the slow sweep of a room with a long couch. “Rumor has they roam the vents, wreaking havoc on the unsuspecting.”

The camera zooms on an open grate in the corner. Lance continues in the same dramatic tone. “They have been summoned for dinner, but currently remain lost. Hopefully today's expedition will uncover new secrets pertaining to this cryptic individual.” 

In the distance, someone is calling for Lance. “But first!” Lance announces, “A wild Keith!” The view swings wildly towards a hallway. 

Keith is crossing the threshold. “You say something babe?” 

The noise from behind the camera is high pitched, pleased, and not found in the English language. Keith blushes. “You have to stop doing that.” 

“Make me.” 

Keith gradually raises an eyebrow, contemplative. He’s distracted when the camera chirps. “What are you doing with Rover?” 

“Lookin’ for Pidge.” Lance loops the camera and makes a beeline for Keith. “Figured we should try the vents.”

“Fair.” Keith says, accepting a peck on the cheek from his boyfriend. 

“Away Rover!” Lance calls out, gesturing with his free hand and catching Keith’s sleeve with the other. “Do me proud!”

There is an electronic burble and a green flash distorts the shot. Then the view shoots towards the ceiling. Several twists and turns are made without pause at varying junctions, faint whirring echoing off the narrow metallic walls. 

Another sharp turn and a nest of blankets swamps the camera’s vision. The view hovers over, then collides with the lump. 

“Murrgh.” 

An additional three bumps and Pidge’s head emerges from the pile. “Oh – hey boy.” More digital chirping. “Dinner already? Okay– wait,” Pidge moves closer, frowning. “Why are you recording? I swear if Lance has been fucking around again...”

The video ends. 

-

Following is a folder of images ‘Bake_Time’; all of them to the backdrop of a kitchen. Some are candid, if you had to guess Lance hijacked Rover 2.0 to stage another ambush. 

The first few pictures of an apron wearing Hunk were taken without his knowledge. The baker is wearing an expression of intense concentration, mid swipe with a spatula spreading frosting on the base layer of a cake. Dishes and various baking utensils are piled in the background, a similarly flour dusted Keith is up to his elbows in soapy water. If you enlarge the image colorful mouse ears can be seen behind a pot.

Two pictures later and a startled Hunk is followed by a smiling Hunk gesturing proudly at the early stages of his creation. The next set are a time lapse from the same spot on the counter, could be flipped past quickly to create a stop motion of the 5 tiered cake rising higher and higher – if the middle of the series wasn’t broken by a crowded selfie.

Lance and Keith and Hunk and Pidge are crushed together, all holding toy sized miniatures of mechanical Lions. On closer inspection, the teens don’t look 100%. There are dark circles under their eyes, cheeks washed out and pale. But they’re smiling, and whatever fatigue they have to fight or sleep they’ve missed hasn’t beat the enthusiasm for this moment, this photo. The grinning faces want to remember this day no matter what came before.

By the ending photo, a finished cake is towering and decorated in arching frosting and the small Lion figurines. On top perches a Black Lion next to a Pink Lion. That’s all for this folder. 

-

“What do we need Rover for?”

The viewfinder flickers and a wide room with a high ceiling comes into focus. A few crates that don’t match the slick walls have been placed in a semicircle, two tall mirrors propped precariously against them. 

“Pictures Princess,” Lance explains, walking across the space carrying a third mirror, speaking to an off-screen Allura. “You have to compare the dresses side by side. Trust me, by the fourth you won’t remember the first. Saves time trying them on again. Plus, you can’t see the back.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Allura’s voice is closer, footsteps tapping on the tile.

“How’s that one fit?”

“It’s very long.” Allura crosses the shot, skirts of the dress trailing behind her. The material hugs her waist and legs, flaring out below her knees. 

Lance approaches, eyebrows furrowed as he peers from different angles. “You like the cap sleeves? Or is strapless better?”

“So many questions,” Allura laughs as Lance fixes the train. 

“They matter!” Lance protests. “As resident wedding expert, Shiro gave me executive powers.”

“He did no such thing.” 

Lance waves a hand dismissively. “Pure semantics.”

The princess’ snort doesn’t mirror the elegance of her first laugh. She doesn’t press the issue, allowing Lance to talk her through all the possibilities and choosing five additional outfits from the boxes to try. 

They chat about logistics and the merits of the color white. They are two dresses down; Lance is lacing up the corset on the third when Allura inquires about his wedding credentials. The rest of the session is an excited, slightly one-sided conversation as Lance talks about his family – his sisters, cousins, godparents wedding experiences; the venues, color palettes and near disasters.

“Did you find the ring in time?” Keith asks. Their audience has grown by one, Keith arrived in search of his boyfriend at the sixteen-minute mark. 

“Yup,” Lance speaks around the four bobby pins in his mouth. “Gabe was trying to eat it, and that’s why you don’t trust four-year-old ring bearers. Nothing but trouble. Can you bring me that necklace?”

“I doubt we’ll have that problem.” Keith says, quickly apologizing to Rover when he jostles the camera on his way by.

“We will if Allura feeds the rings to the mice.” Lance grumbles. 

“Oh hush, they’ll be fine,” Allura insists, leaning so Lance can secure the clasp. “Why did we put my hair up again?” 

“It’s called getting jacked up,” Lance explains, hands landing on his hips. “I know you like this one, but if you’re saying yes to the dress we have to do it properly.” He turns to Keith. “Babe can you guard the door? Just in case.”

Keith shrugs. “If you want. Hunk and Pidge should have Shiro on lockdown practicing Altean.”

“I’m taking no chances.”

“He can’t see me because...?” Allura is face to face with Lance, back to the mirrors as he puts finishing touches on her eyeliner. 

“Tradition.” Lance says with finality. “This is gonna go off without a hitch, but only if we do it right.”

“What’s a hitch?” Allura asks as Lance gestures for her to spin. “Oh.”

The question is forgotten as she takes in her appearance. From behind, the camera captures the skirt flowing like water, pearly sheen rustling as she turns. Her hair is pinned up, revealing bare shoulders and a row of buttons marching down the fitted corset top. 

“Yes! This is perfect!” She turns again, folds of the dress catching bright overhead lights. For the first time since she’s started trying on dresses, Allura is entirely caught up. “Lance this is lovely, thank you. Lance– Lance are you crying?”

“NO. Nope. No crying here.” Lance is hastily rubbing at his eyes. “I think that’s the one. I’ll just, uh, turn off this thing.” He rushes the camera, which has half a second to capture a wet glean on blue eyes as the shot swings. “How do you–”

The video ends. 

-

The subsequent folder is labeled ‘Possible_Ceremony_Locations’. This is the first collection taken outside the Castleship. The first few are oversaturated and distorted, natural sunlight washing out a forest of bone white and deep blue. 

An adjustment is made early on and the rest are sharp, clean photographs of outdoor scenery. Copses of trees are framed; the pale trunks, spindly branches and round blue leaves bathed in warm light. Then a river, bordered by dark rocks and the same trees. The photographer follows the water, past clearings with knee high yellow grass. 

Not everything is scenery – a few well timed photo bombs involve Lance dragging the others into an otherwise nicely framed shot. Pidge looks harassed, Hunk bemused and holding an armful of flowers. Many, many shots have been taken of a waterfall cascading into a wide pool. There is an 8 second video as well: Told_You_So. 

“DO IT!” Pidge hollers. 

Standing at the top of the waterfall Keith is performing a cursory examination of the fall. The camera swings sideways, Lance filling the screen. He’s wearing a flower crown, the same yellow and pink petals Hunk was carrying earlier. 

“Here we have indisputable proof Shiro is not a good person.” 

The camera swerves just in time to catch Shiro running up behind Keith and grabbing him; his momentum carries both of them over the edge. 

Keith screams, they hit the water with an impressive splash. Lance cackles. 

“Lance, stop taking videos!” Pidge’s hand is over the lens. “You’re wasting the memory space.”

A few more pictures remain in this folder, showing the well documented river meeting an expansive ocean. Water stretches across the horizon, deep blue and reaching back to collide with the black sand, waves captured mid-crash. Cliffs rise on either side to bookend the short beach. The sun is lower in the sky, hovering above the line where the sky meets the sea.

Again, Lance has wound up in front of the camera. This time however, he doesn’t seem to be aware. He’s pointing at the ocean mid-shout, eyes lit up. In the second the smile is tremulous, he’s biting his lip – Keith is halfway through the motion of wrapping his boyfriend in a hug. But Lance isn’t one to hold a pose, not this close to the water. The third and final photo in this folder is Keith unbalanced, nearly yanked off his feet as Lance excitedly drags him towards the water. 

-

The second to last folder has multiple stars and exclamation points around the phrase BIG_DAY. There is a vast compilation of photos inside, and the longest video so far. 

The initial pictures confirm the event will be held in the field beside the waterfall. There are shots of the paladins collecting river rocks to create an aisle in the clearing and positioning two logs as bench seating. Hunk brandishes a long woven train of flowers; Pidge is shown carrying a basket of colorful leaves that end up tucked among the river rocks in another shot. Lance and Keith can be spotted unloading small tables and food from the shuttle, waving at the camera. 

No one is terribly formal. Pink cheeks and the bright reflection of sun on water hint at high temperatures. Directly precluding the video are two pictures of a nervous Shiro, who has changed into a collared shirt, talking with Keith. Keith has him by the shoulders in the first, is hugging him in the second.

If you choose to watch the video, you’re committing nearly an hour – but it's worth the watch. This recording shows signs of planning and programing. The turns are slower, angles preset and there are no more jumpy zooms. Sound levels are edited, that particular attention to detail clearly demonstrated as the Black Lion’s arrival doesn’t blow out the speakers when it lands at the edge of the clearing. 

For a giant mechanical creature designed to combat aliens in space, the Black Lion fits along the side of the river with surprising grace. The other four Lions, visible among the surrounding tree tops, manage to convey pleasure at their invitation as well, despite lacking facial expression. 

The camera pans from the other Lions back over Lance, Hunk and Pidge turning on their logs and rests on Coran helping Allura down the ramp of the Black Lion. 

‘Unfairly gorgeous’ has been used to describe Allura on her wedding day, and rightfully so. ‘Radiant’ as well, or ‘stunning’ will do in a pinch. To truly appreciate her, you might want to pause. 

The dress has an embroidered corset top, with a strapless sweetheart neckline that reveals the bright curves of Altean markings gleaming on her shoulders. The skirt ripples down to land rest upon the highest stalks of grass, material trailing as she steps down barefoot. Her makeup has been called some of Lance’s best work – he will say so himself – and her hair is piled in an elaborate knot, two loose curls framing her face. Her jewelry is lace threaded with beads, an intricate pattern that dips between her collarbones and matches silver earrings. 

Feel free to un-pause now. 

Pure delight is reflected on all the paladins faces as the frame slides between Allura walking down the aisle to her waiting groom. Shiro’s mouth is quite literally hanging open; with such a small crowd the elbow Keith digs into his side can’t go unnoticed. Shiro starts, pulls himself to his full height and accepts Allura from Coran graciously. 

Following, Keith takes a seat next to Lance and the next fifteen minutes of hybrid Earth/Altean customs commence. Coran does his part, presenting bracelets and guiding the pair in a back and forth speech. Shiro’s Altean is passable, but there is a point where he stumbles over something and Allura can’t suppress a giggle. Coran has to actually take a moment to collect himself. 

But the ceremony is back on track in no time, Shiro isn’t as red when the mice scamper out of the tall grass to deliver the rings. There is another hiccup as Allura tries to put Shiro’s ring on the wrong hand and Shiro is laughing too, no longer mortified.

They end with vows they wrote, shadows from errant clouds floating across the clearing. The camera has taken vindictive robotic pleasure in recording high definition shots of everyone shedding at least one tear. Hunk is full waterworks five minutes in, Lance makes it to the ring exchange. Pidge and Keith valiantly hold out to tie for last place when Shiro promises Allura to stand by her no matter what they face, to follow her wherever this path takes them, and beyond, because one lifetime with her could not be enough.

The wind picks up, billowing Allura’s dress artfully, tossing leaves and flower petals around the bride and groom during their ‘I do’. Coran is seconds from the final pronouncement when the sky opens with a BOOM and rain pours down. 

This is a proper deluge, fat drops falling so fast the entire wedding party startles. Their surprised exclamations nearly drown out Coran: “You may kiss the Princess!”. 

The angle is a bit skewed as Pidge dives to shelter Rover from the storm, but the camera catches Shiro wrapping an arm around Allura’s waist, dipping her for the kiss as rain falls in glimmering sheets around them. 

Cheering, then a mad dash to save the food. They work as a team, water soaking their clothes – except Allura, who Lance can be seen threatening to barricade in the shuttle if she dares ruin the dress. There is another point, very brief, where Lance can be seen with his face to the sky and his eyes closed, smiling. Then he runs back to helping, catches a plate Pidge is about to drop. The storm lets up not too long after. 

From here the video is edited, something of a highlight reel. Slicing cake – Shiro smearing frosting on Allura’s cheek and her immediate revenge – Flower toss – which is a tad competitive, the victor (Keith, surprisingly) narrowly avoiding an elbow to the jaw – and dancing. 

Music flows out of the open shuttle; the clearing is lit by strings of twinkle lights Pidge and Hunk weave among branches as dusk settles. 

Shiro and Allura have the first dance. Keith shares a nod with the Princess when Shut up and Dance kicks off the evening, the newly married couple twirl in patterns too complex to follow and are joined by the others well before the song ends. After that, anything goes. Somewhere along the line a slow dance is snuck in. There is a memorable shot of the bride and groom gazing into each other’s eyes, but the reel wouldn’t be complete without Lance and Keith in the background. They turn slowly to the beat, pressed close and lost in their own little world.

The festivities wrap up with a rousing send off, paladins shooing their newlywed leaders into the Black Lion, who has allowed them to decorate with a JUST MARRIED banner that will surely burn up in the atmosphere. The other Lions roar farewell, Coran packs up the shuttle and takes off with a wave. The final sound bite is Lance, shouting gleefully. 

“TO THE BEACH!” 

-

Now you’ve reached the last folder, which holds two unnamed videos and nothing more.

Open the first and you find a bright fire center stage, surrounded by darkness. The faint strumming of a stringed instrument barely registers above the crackling logs. Gradually details come into focus, those nearest the fire sharpening first as light levels adjust. 

An impressive bonfire is encircled by rocks on the black sand. A pile of kindling is near the fire, beside a cooler and a stack of blankets. Driftwood seating and paladins are positioned around the flames at a respectable distinct – except for Pidge.

“Sit any closer and you’ll catch,” Lance chides. He’s across the fire from Pidge, who has their back to the camera. “I’m fairly certain you can see this fire from space.” 

“That’s not on me,” Pidge throws back, spearing a marshmallow on a short stick. “I’m not the one with the pyromaniac boyfriend.”

“You said light the fire, I lit the fire.” Keith says defensively from Lance’s side.

“I don’t think any of us expected you to use your Lion.” 

Keith shrugs, returns to sharpening a stick. “Are you supposed to put the whole marshmallow in the fire like that?” He asks, looking to Pidge. 

“No, they are not,” Lance cuts in. “This is why we can’t have nice things.” 

Pidge’s expression will remain a mystery, but their voice is clear. “There is no point in eating this until it’s as black as my heart.”

“You disrespect the art,” Lance insists. “Back me up here Hunk.” 

The gentle strumming ends, Hunk moves in to join the other three in the flickering pool of illumination. “I’m with Lance on this one,” he says, landing on a log and putting something down out of sight. “You’re doing a disservice to the s’more community.”

Lance nudges Keith. “Thoughts?” 

“I’ll tell you after I try one.” Keith says, almost too soft for the audio to pick up. 

“This is your first s’more?” Hunk exclaims. “Oh man, I hope I got this marshmallow recipe right. I had to substitute a bunch.” If you look closely you can see Keith’s tension, can watch it melt away as Lance offers to show him how.

They are so preoccupied all four jump sky high when Pidge’s marshmallow catches, then explodes with a fat pop. The remaining 15 seconds of the clip is Keith and Lance collapsing into laughter as soon as they confirm Pidge hasn’t gotten burned or caught fire. Pidge appears frozen as Hunk ventures closer. The larger boy scoops some mallow off the side of Pidge’s face with a finger, waiting for a reaction. He samples it, shrugs, and the clip ends as Keith and Lance howl. 

-

Final Video. 

The recording picks up later that night, camera activating for no obvious reason. The fire has dimmed to embers, music from earlier is carrying. The s’more supplies are packed, everyone moved to use the driftwood as a backrest.

Pidge reclines next to Hunk, bare feet buried in the sand, eyes closed. Hunk is cross legged, strumming a ukulele, hands moving of their own volition across familiar cords. He’s playing a melody Lance nods along to. Keith is curled up at Lances side, idly tapping the beat on his boyfriend’s chest.

For a few moments there is nothing but gentle notes and the faint splash of waves, heartbeat of the ocean.

The first soft syllables Lance’s lips start tracing aren’t caught by the recording. A few lines pass before the audio adjusts. 

_“...but you’re so hot that I melted, I fell right through the cracks...”_

Keith stirs at Lance’s voice, lifting his head a little. Lance carries on, Hunk’s smile widens knowingly as he hums the chorus.

_“...there’s no need to complicate, our time is short...”_

Keith pulls back fully; his profile is illuminated by the glowing red embers. He gazes at Lance, eyes wide, lips parted slightly. He is unmoving as the lyrics run their course, mesmerized, memorizing the sounds and surroundings of the night. 

_“...This is our fate, I’m yours.”_

As the song finishes Lance finally looks down at Keith, locking eyes with the other boy. And if you didn’t know what love looked like before today, you do now. 

The video ends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We made it! Wow did I not know what I was getting myself into. We must all send a huge big unending thank you to sarah for encouraging a one shot and remaining when it turned ravenous <3
> 
> MAJOR AFFECTION to my new friends and ace readers and anxious folk for sharing and generally being amazing. I’m so thankful for the support. 
> 
> Pretty please throw your words in the box below. I’ll give you secrets. If you curious message me on tumblr ~ same 'nothingwrongwiththerain' 
> 
> Love you all! See you round space nerds
> 
> ((PSSSSST --- I wrote more in this particular universe. if you liked, there's a whole paladins get pets 'verse in the making. just so you know. its a separate series. byeeeee))


End file.
